About Richard Brodsky

Richard L. Brodsky represents the 92nd Assembly District, which includes the Towns of Greenburgh and Mount Pleasant, the Villages of Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Elmsford, Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington, Pleasantville, Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown, a portion of the Village of Briarcliff Manor, and part of the City of Yonkers.

He serves as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions, which oversees the state’s public and private corporations. This includes jurisdiction over business corporation law and telecommunications, as well as all public authorities, such as the MTA, the Thruway Authority, the Public Service Commission, the Port Authority, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

From 1993 to 2002, Assemblyman Brodsky served as Chairman of the Committee on Environmental Conservation, where he structured the most dramatic legislative advances in environmental conservation in over two decades. His accomplishments include authoring the legislation that created the Environmental Protection Fund, the first dedicated fund for environmental protection in the history of New York State, and the Clean Air/Clean Water Bond Act, a $1.75 billion bond act passed by voters across New York to provide a funding mechanism for unfunded clean air and clean water projects throughout the State.

Prior to that, Assemblyman Brodsky served as Chairman of the Committee on Oversight, Analysis and Investigation. In that capacity Assemblyman Brodsky successfully engineered improved legislative oversight of the Executive Branch of government, passed laws to reform proprietary business schools, and took on the daunting task of investigating and exposing the involvement of organized crime in the waste hauling and management business communities. He also met with representatives of legislative bodies in emerging democracies in the former Soviet Union, China, and with the new democratic government of Chile to help them develop independent oversight and investigative capacities as a check on executive power.

Assemblyman Brodsky has led efforts to investigate the Indian Point nuclear power plants, undertook the first independent analysis of the Evacuation Plans for Indian Point, and in February 2002, he released the Interim Report on the Evacuation Plans for the Indian Point Nuclear Generating Facility, which detailed the serious and systematic deficiencies which make it unable to "adequately protect the public health and safety," as required by law. These findings were confirmed by the James Lee Witt Report released eleven months later. On June 13, 2002, Chairman Brodsky, along with numerous local, State, and federal elected officials, submitted a formal Petition to the Federal Emergency Management Agency requesting that they withdraw their approval of the Indian Point Evacuation Plans, marking the first formal challenge to a nuclear plant’s evacuation plans. He is also the lead Petitioner and Counsel, along with the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Pete and Toshi Seeger and others, in litigation seeking to compel the State Department of Environmental Conservation to effectively regulate the ongoing pollution of the Hudson River caused by Indian Point’s intake of over two billion gallons of water daily.

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In addition to his Committee Chairmanship, Assemblyman Brodsky has also been a leader in the successful efforts to increase funding for education, and to create alternatives to the Regents high-stakes standardized testing regime while maintaining high standards. Assemblyman Brodsky was a co-creator of the STAR (School Tax Relief) Program, enacted in 1996, which has saved homeowners and senior citizens thousands of dollars each year. He was a co-sponsor of the legislation to eliminate the sales tax on clothing, and has long fought to ensure that the tax system is fair and progressive. He has also worked to make sporting events more family-friendly by authoring legislation which created alcohol-free zones at stadiums.

As part of his work on the environment, Assemblyman Brodsky has been active on a national level. He serves as a Co-Chair of CLEAN (Coalition of Legislators for Environmental Action Now) and NCEL (National Coalition of Environmental Legislators). He has led a broad coalition of state legislators, environmental organizations and private citizens in an effort to enact a U.S. Constitutional Amendment for Environmental Rights. This Amendment would guarantee the right of each citizen to clean and healthful air and water and to the protection of the other natural resources of the nation. To date, legislative bodies in Alabama, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island have passed resolutions calling on Congress to enact the amendment, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Brodsky and his ability to create coalitions and organize grassroots efforts.

Assemblyman Brodsky has received numerous awards from local groups for his achievements and dedication over the years, including the Congress of Italian-American Organizations Award, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award, the United Federation of Teachers Friend of Education Award, the Westchester Distinguished Service Medal, the Jewish Council of Yonkers Appreciation Award, the American Arab Council Distinguished Service Award, the New York State Federation of Police Legislative Excellence Award, the International Association of Firefighters Achievement Award, and the New York State Audubon Society William B. Hoyt Environmental Award. He formerly served as Adjunct Professor at St. John’s University School of Law, where he taught entertainment and municipal law, and Adjunct Professor at Pace University Law School, where he taught advanced constitutional law. He is married to the former Paige Massman, and they have two daughters, Emily and Julianne Willie.