Gillibrand announces she is running for president
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced she is running for U.S. president, and vowed to push back against many Trump Administration policies that she said are counter to American ideals.
Gillibrand was appointed to the Senate, representing New York, in 2009, and has championed legislation for equal pay for women, the STOCK Act that forbids members of Congress from profiting off insider knowledge, and permanent health care and compensation to the 9/11 first responders who are sick with diseases caused by the toxins at Ground Zero in New York City.
Gillibrand has been in Orleans County several times in recent years, promoting vocational training programs at the Iroquois Job Corps in Shelby, advocating for new technology for shop classes at schools in a visit to Albion High School, and serving lunch at the Eastern Orleans Community Center in Holley.
Gillibrand, 52, made her campaign announcement on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She said “health care should be a right and not a privilege” and vowed to push for better public education and more job training programs.
She said she would fight institutional racism, corruption and greed in Washington, and “the special interests that write legislation in the dead of the night.”
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has been in Orleans County several times in recent years, including on Oct. 27, 2014 when she visited the Iroquois Job Corps Center in Shelby.
“I know that I have the compassion, the courage and the fearless determination to get that done,” she told Colbert.
Gillibrand is the first New York senator in nearly 40 years to serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee. She said she uses that position to give New York’s farmers and agricultural producers a voice in Washington, and has advocated for specialty crop insurance, expanded rural broadband access, and improved recovery efforts after natural disasters.
“Our movement is about lifting voices that have been ignored for too long,” she said on Twitter. “That means taking institutional racism and injustice head-on – in our politics, health care, education and economy. Let’s show what we can build with determination and optimism, rather than hatred and fear.”
Gillibrand said she won’t accept campaign money from PACs or federal lobbyists and will run a campaign with a core mission of restoring power to people.
“I’m not afraid to take on Trump, special interests or any powerful system – never have been,” she tweeted.
