Meet Assemblywoman Rebecca Seawright
Rebecca A. Seawright represents the Upper East Side, Yorkville, and Roosevelt Island in New York’s 76th Assembly District. As the first woman to serve the district and since her election in 2014, she is known as a strong voice for over 133,000 constituents, securing over $15 million in funding for public schools, senior centers, parks, and non-profits.
Appointed by the Speaker in 2021, she holds the Leadership position of Chair of the Majority Steering Committee. Previously, she served in leadership as Secretary of the Majority conference, and as Chair of the Task Force on Women’s Issues. Nominated by her colleagues, she serves as a Director of the Legislative Women’s Caucus and works with her colleagues as part of the Bipartisan Pro-Choice, Jewish, Environmental, and Gun Reform Legislative Caucuses. As a member of the Ways and Means; Banking; Codes; Corporations, Authorities and Commissions; Education; and Judiciary Committees, Seawright is motivated to protect her constituents’ interests in our great State of New York.
Rebecca fights for our community through major environmental and sustainability initiatives such as her sponsorship of the Clean Waterways Fund, signed into law by the Governor; and the Sponsorship and passage of air quality monitoring legislation to mitigate the impacts of a waste transfer station at East 91st Street. Rebecca is a leading advocate for affordable housing and landmark housing reform laws to abolish vacancy decontrol and restrict rent hikes. She has proudly introduced legislation, now signed into law to streamline the Board of Elections and continues to cosponsor and strongly support measures to run elections efficiently, accurately, and with integrity to protect our voting rights.
Notably, for the 2020 General Election and the 2021 New York City Primary, Rebecca successfully secured additional early voting and Election Day poll sites.Additionally, she is championing the Teach LGBT curriculum bill to ensure that NYS Education Department develops curriculum on the historical treatment of and contributions by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in America.
Her bills have been signed into law capping annual fees from lenders, implementing a study on consumer financial literacy, requiring health insurance policies to include 3-D Mammography at no cost to the consumer; encouraging greater representation of women on corporate boards; and identifying how many policy-making positions are held by women in the New York State Government. Inspired to renew the movement for the federal Equal Rights Amendment to guarantee that our rights are anchored in our State and US Constitutions, she authored and passed an Equal Rights Amendment to our New York State Constitution.
Seawright is the recipient of The Met’s 13th Annual Women’s Award ’20; Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Fearless Girl Award ‘19; A Place to Be(ad) Me Honoree ‘19; Super Happy Healthy Kids Black Tie Gala Honoree ‘19; James Dudley Luce Foundation Humanitarian of the Year ‘19; Lenox Hill Neighborhood House Elizabeth Rohatyn Award ‘17; and The New York Board of Rabbis Humanitarian of the Year ‘15.
In the Assembly Education Committee, she champions our public schools and helped obtain more than $1 billion in new state support. Rebecca has organized hundreds of community events supporting seniors, including rent freeze clinics, housing legal clinics, health and wellness forums, and organizing resource fairs. In response to the COVID19 pandemic, Rebecca co-sponsored emergency legislation that suspends rent payments for small business commercial tenants and certain mortgage payments due to COVID-19