Daniel Garodnick

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Daniel R. (Dan) Garodnick is a New York City Councilman representing the 4th district, which comprises Midtown East, Murray Hill, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, and much of the Upper East Side. Garodnick was elected in 2005, winning 63% of the vote in the general election and defeating Republican candidate Patrick Murphy as well as libertarian candidate Jak Jacob Karako. In the Democratic Primary of that same year he won 59% of the vote on his way to defeating fellow candidates Jack Lester, Meryl Brodsky, and Jak Jacob Karako. Within the city council, he serves on various committees, chairing that of Planning, Dispositions and Concessions.

Prior to running for elective office, Garodnick was a litigation associate at the well-known New York law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. While there he represented the Partnership for New York City in the successful Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit seeking higher standards and equitable funding for public school students. He also represented a family that lost a member in the attack of September 11, 2001; defended a Living Wage Ordinance in the City of St. Louis, Missouri; and represented the Lower East Side Tenement Museum on a pro bono basis. Prior to joining the firm, he served as a law clerk to a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

He is a graduate of Trinity School, where he was president of the student council and the model congress, and holds a J.D. from University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, and an A.B. from Dartmouth College, where he served as class president for each of his four years.

Garodnick spent two years working for the New York Civil Rights Coalition as the director of a program to teach New York public school students non-violent ways to combat racial discrimination, and to use government to effect social change. He then sought and secured funding from a synagogue to travel independently to Virginia and Georgia to help African-American communities rebuild churches burned by racially-motivated arson in 1996.

As of 2007, Garodnick serves as a member of the Advisory Board of Directors of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, and he is also a board member of the Holy Trinity Neighborhood Center on East 88th Street, which provides essential social services to homeless and unemployed people in the neighborhood.

[edit] References

• Official NYC Council Website about Daniel Garodnick
• Dan Garodnick official page

Preceded by Eva Moskowitz

New York City Council, 4th District 2006 – present

Incumbent