“When I announced my candidacy, the Beatles were still together,” says Richard Gottfried, New York's longest-serving state lawmaker, retiring at the end of this month after decades of championing progressive issues.
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donationsAssemblymember Richard Gottfried, who represented parts of Midtown Manhattan and the West Side in the state Assembly for more than five decades, chose not to seek re-election this year, putting an end to a career that first saw him win office in 1970. For 50 years Gottfried has seen Albany lawmakers rise and fall, the balance of power shift, and legislative agendas that have impacted millions of New Yorkers.
Gottfried, 75, spoke to Gothamist for an exit interview as he prepares for retirement from the only adult job he’s ever known.Take me back to that time. I mean, you were a 23-year-old college student. What kind of 23-year-old wants to run for the state Legislature? What was going through your head at the time?Well, I was actually in law school. I took off the spring semester of my second year in law school to devote full-time to my campaign.
I really had very little idea, looking back, what exactly one does as an assemblyman, and had really little idea whether I would be there for a term or two or whether this would be my life's work. Who knew?Well, almost everything I know, I didn't know when I first arrived — you know, getting bills drafted well.
On issues like lessening penalties for marijuana, legalizing same-sex marriage — I mean, you were way out ahead of these issues and have seen the general public opinion swing your way. That has to be satisfying on some level to you, right? The marriage bill — which ultimately when it passed, it was sponsored by Danny O'Donnell, one of our openly gay members in the Assembly — passed, I guess, nine years after I first introduced it, which was a lot quicker than I think a lot of people expected. But, you know, my bill to create a single-payer health plan for New York has been [introduced] for 30 years and is still an uphill fight to get enacted, and I'm hoping that will improve in the near future.
But I think that is — if I could change the outcome of one thing in the last 52 years, that would be it.It’s something that's been on my mind for a couple of years, but not before that.
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