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Corey Johnson was elected by his peers to serve as Speaker of the New York City Council on January 3, 2018. He was re-elected in 2017 with 94% of the vote to represent Council District 3, which includes the neighborhoods of Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, Flatiron, West SoHo, Hudson Square, the Meatpacking District, Columbus Circle, Times Square, the Theater District, the Garment District and part of the Upper West Side.
Raised in a union household where his mother, a homeless services provider, and his father, a Teamster, instilled in him the values of community service and political engagement, Corey came to national attention in 1999 when, as the captain of his high school football team, he took the courageous step of coming out publicly as gay. Corey’s actions landed him on the front page of the New York Times and he began telling his story to audiences of young people across the country. He would later serve as chairperson of Manhattan’s Community Board 4, becoming the youngest person to chair a community board in the five boroughs.
Corey has earned a reputation as a tenacious advocate for his constituents and a prolific legislator at City Hall. Corey has also been able to forge consensus on tough issues to achieve long-sought goals in Council District 3. He won the creation of the first new public park in Chelsea in decades the creation and preservation of thousands of units of affordable housing and the saving of Hartley House, a 121-year-old community services center.
Under Corey’s leadership the Council passed some of the strictest sexual harassment prevention legislation in the country, expanded services for homeless and runaway youth, took serious steps to address pay inequity across racial and gender lines, introduced legislation to protect tenants and make New York City more affordable, all while increasing the City’s financial reserves.
The last NYC Budget included many of the priorities that Speaker Johnson and the Members of the New York City Council pushed for - items to improve the lives of all New Yorkers, including the Fair Fares Program which ensured that 800,000 New Yorker’s who live at or under the federal poverty line receive reduced fare Metrocards. Corey ensured that increased resources were directed to our libraries, after school programs, trash pick-ups, and summer youth employment initiatives. These budgetary allotments and many others, were made possible as the direct result of the New York City Council fighting for creative solutions to protect our City’s most vulnerable, and Speaker Johnson’s commitment to providing much-needed resources to as many New Yorkers as possible.
Speaker Johnson is a passionate and vocal supporter of the State of Israel, having visited there four times and fallen in love with both the country and its people.
He is also a tenacious opponent of BDS in all it’s forms.
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