Harlem Sen. Brian Benjamin Launches Comptroller Bid, Report Says

HARLEM, NY — Harlem State Senator Brian Benjamin is launching a run for citywide office and filing papers Thursday with the New York Campaign Finance Board for the 2021 comptroller race, according to reports.

Benjamin is touting his finance-heavy background as a qualification for the office, the Daily News first reported. The Harlem lawmaker currently chairs the State Senate's budget and revenues committee, is a Harvard Business School graduate and worked in finance and real estate development prior to politics.

"I think it’s important to have a comptroller who is qualified, interested in being a fiscal, independent watchdog of the resources for the pension-holders and for the city of New York," Benjamin told the Daily News. "You really need someone who is financially-savvy and has some experience on that level and I think I have that."

Benjamin will also run for reelection to the State Senate in 2020, telling the Daily News that the reality of running for citywide office means preparing for an election " two to three years out."

Read the full Daily News article here.

The State Senator for New York's 30th District — which spans most of Central Harlem and parts of West Harlem, East Harlem, the Upper West Side and Washington Heights — is a relative newcomer to elected office. Benjamin won his seat on the senate in a 2017 special election that was triggered by a game of political musical chairs in Harlem. The seat opened up after former State Sen. Bill Perkins won the City Council seat vacated by Inez Dickens, who kicked off the chain reaction by winning a seat on the State Assembly.

Since joining the State Senate Benjamin has passed bills requiring liquor stores to notify neighbors before opening and has advocated for neighborhood causes such as the fight against re-branding South Harlem as "SoHa," an effort to stop the opening of a Methadone clinic in a $4M brownstone and preventing the city from cutting middle school grades at Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing & Visual Arts.