A massive announcement has recently been made public explaining that one New York City councilman has chosen to swap parties from Democrat to Republican.
In a Monday announcement, Ari Kagan, who is a city councilman from Brooklyn that works for the 47th district, expressed his intent to change parties. Kagan also took the time to state his intent to stand against Democrat Justin Brannan in the general election for a newly redrawn district next year. Kagan claimed that crime was one of the main reasons that he chose to depart from the Democrat camp.
“Over the last several years in my personal humble opinion, [the] Democratic Party in New York became moving to the left at such a speed that they could not even keep up,” stated Kagan while carrying out a press conference this past Monday, as reported by amNY. “And on issue after issue every year, every month, I started to feel that it’s not me leaving the Democratic Party, but [the] Democratic Party very quickly started to leave me. Especially on [the] most important issue of the day, public safety.”
“Every month I found myself like ‘what am I doing in the Democratic Party?” he stated. “In my own district, in southern Brooklyn, everywhere I knocked [on] the doors people saying ‘when are you switching to the Republican Party?”
It was specifically highlighted by Kagan that the criminal reforms for the city and its climbing crime rate were the primary reasons he was choosing to cross the aisle. Most specifically, he spotlighted a few Democratic policy proposals such as abolishing solitary confinement and eliminating landlords’ ability to run criminal background checks on prospective tenants.
“I believe right now, the Democratic Party is doing everything possible in New York City to make everybody less safe,” he explained. As seen in the statistics for crime provided by the NYPD, crimes such as burglary, grand larceny, and rape decreased by 14%, all while many other crimes jumped. Instances of felony assault jumped 3%, robberies spiked 3.6%, vehicle theft rose 9.4%, and over 30 homicides were reported in just this past month of November alone, an increase of 25% from where that number sat at this point last year.
Kagan was first elected to his seat on the New York City Council in November of 2021. his district covered the areas of Coney Island, Gravesend and Sea Gate. As an immigrant coming from Belarus and the son of a survivor of the Holocaust, Kagan first made his way to the United States back in 1993. He is a graduate of Baruch College and worked for comptroller John Liu and former Congressman Michael McMahon.
“We’re happy to have him as part of our conference,” exclaimed Joe Borelli, the Republican New York City Council minority leader, in a press conference. “And I think he’ll do a great job serving the people of this district.”