Ben Wolcott🦋🌹

I'm so proud to be endorsed by Sarahana Shrestha, who has been a tireless advocate for tenants’ rights throughout the state. In the Assembly, I look forward to working with her and others to ensure Western and Upstate New Yorkers’ voices are heard for statewide housing justice.

Here's something Hochul left out of her big budget announcement: 450,000+ New Yorkers will lose their healthcare coverage on July 1, and she has no plan to protect them. Call Hochul every day until the budget is done and demand she put our lives over her donors: 518-474-9390

Tenants and elected officials from every part of NY are rallying today in Albany to expand rent stabilization and rental assistance! Trump’s budget cuts are hitting New York tenants hard and the REST Act and HAVP vouchers would make rent affordable!

Solar developers are about to cancel 20+ major renewable energy projects in New York, and more than a million are over 2 months behind on their energy bills. My op-ed on @CityAndStateNY: Our private energy system is failing. The public can save it. cityandstateny.com/opinion/2026/0…

The pied-a-terre tax was a big first step. But unless we fully tax the rich, 470,000 New Yorkers will lose their health insurance in July and NYC will still face a $5.4B budget shortfall. Make sure @GovKathyHochul knows this fight is far from over: dsa.nyc/ttrletter

BREAKING 🚨 Unions representing 300,000 workers statewide, including HTC, DC37, CWA, PSC-CUNY, NYSNA + more are calling on Governor Hochul to tax the rich. Which side are you on, @GovKathyHochul: with the workers who make New York run, or with your rich donors?

Turns out ghosts send emails. My latest on Albany’s car insurance fracas: empire.streetsblog.org/fake-emails-ca…

We need more renewables to protect NYers from skyrocketing energy prices driven by war, corporate greed, and Trump’s fossil fuel agenda. But developers are threatening to cancel major renewable projects right when we need them the most. So why is this happening? 🧵

We've been told that Cap & Invest is scary & expensive, but WA has had it in place for 3 years. It's overwhelmingly popular—not bc it aligns with everyone's politics, but bc it has raised $4.2B for things people care about. We should learn from them. lohud.com/story/opinion/…

New Yorkers impacted by Essential Plan changes—including 450,000 who will lose coverage in July—are about to receive this confusing letter. “No action needed” can mean the state is moving you to another plan, or you’re on your own. We need S9589 to keep New Yorkers insured!

The heads of NYC's Democratic Socialists of America chapter, who back Mamdani's push for tax hikes this year, are out with statements blasting Menin's plan. (Menin's plan isn't actually proposing cuts, tho the efficacy of some of its savings measures can certainly be debated).

Ulster and Dutchess county comptrollers from my district join Onondaga county to say: the state must tax the rich! cityandstateny.com/opinion/2026/0…

Governor Hochul, you had time under a friendly federal admin, but it was wasted on inaction. Instead of calling @NYSERDA to write a fake memo, maybe you should call @NYPAenergy to build 15gw of public renewables by 2030?

Happening now, we’re demanding the Governor come to an agreement to pass New York for All to end collusion with ICE!

Democratic leaders shouldn’t fall for oil and gas industry talking points: NY’s energy affordability crisis is directly linked to our over-reliance on gas. We must implement the CLCPA and build towards a future that is not dependent on fossil fuels. cityandstateny.com/opinion/2026/0…

It’s true that antisemites will always find a justification to hate Jews. They did so before Israel existed, and they would continue to do so if there were no ethnonationalist Jewish state, or if America’s Jewish establishment did pursue a break-up with Israel’s regime. But this argument misunderstands the nature of the threat American Jews face today. Yes, there have always been, and likely will always be, virulent antisemites out there. But a world where this kind of resentment is relegated to a relatively minor fringe is very different from one where these ideas are breaking containment into a much broader population. A decade ago, your average podcast-listening young man was not likely to think in terms of “the Jews are causing this or that harm.” But after years of watching live-streamed atrocities be committed by the Jewish state and seemingly condoned by most mainstream American Jewish institutions, that is changing. And it’s easy to imagine the change accelerating as those same institutions  celebrate a war that is already unpopular and is likely to become increasingly despised by the American people. This change matters greatly. It's the difference between Nick Fuentes being some freak most people haven't heard of, and Fuentes having such a large and influential following that people like Vice President JD Vance hesitate to exclude him from GOP spaces. Fuentes has grown his base dramatically since October 7, based in significant part on his shrewd weaving together of young people’s legitimate outrage over the Israeli government's conduct with his own classically vile Protocols of the Elders of Zion-style antisemitism. For years, mainstream Jewish institutions have insisted that they could have it both ways—declaring on the one hand that being a Jew in good standing in our community requires undying devotion to the state of Israel, while also maintaining that American Jews cannot be held responsible for Israel’s actions. But here’s the thing: You cannot claim that everyone who criticizes the Israeli government for indiscriminately killing children is an antisemite—i.e., someone who hates all Jews—without implying that indiscriminately killing children is somehow an all-Jewish project, rather than the project of a specific, out-of-control far-right government and its supporters. And if you repeat that message often enough, well, some people are going to start believing it.

This is a heartbreaking attack. And it does make me fear for the world my Jewish sons will grow up in. If a significant portion of Americans metabolize their legitimate anger towards the government of Israel into resentment against Jews as a whole, that is genuinely a more perilous set of affairs than Jews in this country have faced in generations. Which is why it’s so dangerous that mainline Jewish organizations have spent years insisting unequivocally that “Israel” and “Jews” should, in fact, be conflated. It’s the same rhetoric Nick Fuentes uses—but it’s arguably even more dangerous when it comes from the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt. The logic of Zionism rests heavily on the claim that Jewish safety necessitates a Jewish state. It is largely this desire—to protect our people, whom history has proven need protection—that has led so many national and local Jewish institutions to continue backing the Israeli regime, through apartheid and genocide and more. But this approach is self-defeating. Tying the honor and reputation of our people to the rogue government of an ethnostate is not making us safer. On the contrary, it’s making American Jews more vulnerable to the kind of antisemitic mass politics that we haven’t had to worry about in this country for a long time. That's what my Jewish sons have to look forward to. And it’s not going to change until our mainline Jewish institutions start owning up to the danger they’ve created for all of us and start demonstrating, through their words and deeds, that “Israel” does not, in fact, equal “the Jews.”

I took office just over a month ago with a mandate to fight for an Astoria & LIC we can afford. Today, I voted YES on the Assembly's budget proposal, which includes a version of my bill with @SenGonzalezNY to raise taxes on NYC's wealthiest corporations & raise $1.7 billion.

Important article via @nysfocus that demonstrates the absurdity of the Governor’s attempt to gut New York’s climate law. Her NYSERDA memo is a manufactured crisis. A red herring as NYers suffer from high energy bills due to gas. nysfocus.com/2026/03/10/clc…