Eli Northrup is running for New York State Assembly in Upper Manhattan’s District 69. A public defender and criminal justice advocate, Northrup is mounting his second run for the seat after losing to current incumbent Assembly Member Micah Lasher in 2024. With Lasher vacating the seat to run for Congress, Northrup is the favorite to win June’s Democratic Party primary. 

Northrup has earned the endorsement of a wide swath of the state’s progressive and socialist left, but also the ire of former Cuomo supporters. 

Amid an election year dominated by discussions about the New York City Democratic Socialists of America’s electoral slate, Northrup’s campaign provides a window into how non-DSA insurgent progressives are hoping to meet the current political moment.

The Indypendent sat down with Eli Northrup to discuss his campaign. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

When did this district start to feel like home? 

I have an older sister who is 13 years older than me—my half sister, Molly—who went to Bard and then moved to New York City right after college. And so when I was in middle school, my parents used to put me on like the Peter Pan bus and just send me up to visit her. 

I started coming to New York City when I was in my teens and I just loved it. … I moved here for law school and went to NYU in 2008. And I’ve pretty much been here since, except for a fellowship I did a couple of years after law school [where] I spent 18 months in DC. 

I moved to this neighborhood uptown in 2015 when I started working at the Bronx Defenders. When I was in law school, I was living in the village. One of my best friends was at Columbia for the School of International Public Affairs (SIPA) and he lived on 111th Street. I used to come up and visit him and that’s when I started to get to know the neighborhood. 

When I was moving back to start my job, I was going to be working in the Bronx. I wanted to live uptown and I always thought it was a really nice mix. … ‘Cause you had this large Jewish community, it’s lefty, but it’s also a mix of different kinds of people. And it has a community feel. I think because of the parks, because of all the block associations and the neighborhood groups, it just felt like a smaller, village feel within this huge city. 

Was there a moment or an experience where you were like, “Oh yeah, this is my home now”? 

My dad passed away a few years ago and I think that there had been—you always wonder where you’re gonna end up …  I felt—when I came back here after his funeral and dealing with that—that I had this support system here. It was multi-generational. It’s not just my friends. I know my friend’s parents and, now through running, I’ve met all these other people and I just feel this sense of support and comfort. 

You’re part of the Three Parks Democratic Club. You have been endorsed by a number of DSA elected officials in the state assembly and state senate. You are not a DSA candidate. Where do you feel like is your political home? 

I’ve always felt like my political identity was lived through my work as a public defender.

I was living it every day in the court and I was confronting inequity and that was my politics. Then I started to go to Albany as an advocate and worked in coalition with other grassroots organizations. But my effort—and like it’s not just like a nine-to-five job, like the job never stops. People are calling you whenever something happens. You have to react. You have to be there.

And so I was living my politics through my work and my job and I didn’t feel like I was missing a political home at all, but I also wasn’t interested that much in electoral politics or it just wasn’t the thing that I was focused on.

Now, I’ve built a lot of the relationships that I have with people that endorsed me and organizations that endorsed me, it’s because of the credibility I have from doing that advocacy work. 

If you look at the electeds that support me, it’s because I was up in Albany talking to them about criminal justice reform and/or taking them to court and sitting with them explaining the system and so I’m really proud of the endorsements that I have [from] the organizations because they rode the bus with me 

They sat next to me. They advocated with me. They like sought my advice or they saw who I was and the kind of person I was. It’s not because of any other sort of political relationship. It’s because of the work that I’ve done. 

Is there a specific endorsement that you are most proud of? 

I think the New York Working Families Party endorsement is meaningful to me because I feel like I really earned it through the work that I did. 

And when I ran two years ago, it really was what enabled my campaign to be seen as legitimate. When I got that endorsement, which was a difficult process, I felt like, “Okay, this makes sense that I’m doing this. It demonstrates that I’m progressive, but it also just demonstrates that I’m a real candidate.”

And in the two years since I’ve lost, I continue to be involved in advocacy with WFP. I think that’s meaningful. 

[Assembly Member] Amanda Septimo is somebody [else] who made me feel like I could run for office. I met her because I went to court with her in the Bronx when people were trying to learn about bail and discovery and the criminal court system. And she ended up shadowing me a couple of times and then became somebody that I could talk to when I was in Albany and came to trust. And she made me feel like I could run for office, really. So that relationship has emboldened me. 

I’m so grateful for the breadth of the endorsements as a whole. … When you go up to Albany, you can’t just be with people you agree with and people from your area, you need to build consensus. And to me, the support that I have in this race demonstrates my ability to be effective as a legislator, which is the only thing that matters. Like if I win and I’m not effective, then I haven’t done anything. I haven’t made any changes. 

How do you relate to the current incumbent, Micah Lasher? Anything that you would do differently as a representative for the district? 

So I actually knew Micah before we ran against each other. When he worked for the governor, I also brought him to court and sat with him to talk to him about bail and discovery. And we spent a night in Bronx Criminal Court together. We would [also] chat every now and then. 

When Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell retired, I actually jumped in first. Micah didn’t jump in until about a month later. So I didn’t really see myself running against Micah. I had said I was going to run, and then it turned out he was also running. And he had a lot of experience and connections and stuff, so he ended up being a favorite big pretty soon after that. 

When you run against somebody, you’re sharing that experience, and it can get intense. But in the time since, we have built a strong, trusting relationship. 

And I do think that he’s ultimately in this for the right reason. He cares about this community. 

We do have differences. I think criminal justice is one area where I feel like I wish that he would have gone a little bit farther supporting some of the bills that I’ve advocated for throughout my career. And I think he would say that we’re not quite totally aligned on those issues. 

[But] I do think he took the lead in creative solutions to pushing back against Trump. With the redistricting and the Recourse Act threatening to withhold tax revenue, thinking about how to sue ICE agents, he’s been good and creative in those areas. 

I think we just have different backgrounds, ultimately. I will always see myself as a public defender. 

Recent reporting from NY Focus and City and State has shown that Westside Progress— a political action committee that has been getting involved with Stephanie, your opponent—has also been receiving funds from Cuomo donors and anti-Mamdani liberals. Does that frame your race in any way?

It’s unfortunate. First of all, that a super PAC is set to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to impact this race. And that’s not how races should be decided—by outside money. They should be decided by the voters of this community and they shouldn’t be influenced by these PACs. 

In fact, it seems like Westside Progress’s number one donor is a different PAC called Next NYC. And that PAC’s largest donor is the wife of the head of A&E Real Estate, which was just ranked one of the worst landlords in New York City. 

And I don’t know that Stephanie is soliciting this, but the fact that they are weighing in against me, I think it is significant. 

They must for some reason think that I’m a threat and Cuomo donors and Republican donors are contributing to my opponent. 

The platforms of you and your opponent are very similar. Where is the difference between the two of you? 

The difference is experience—the time that I’ve spent in Albany as an advocate and my credibility up there and my understanding of how it works; I have lived my values and I’ve fought for things. 

I’ve been in a situation where I’ve been tested up in Albany, been pushed to compromise and also worked on bills and legislation. And that just hasn’t been her background.

I don’t think you need to be a political insider to run for office and actually I have really gotten to know Stephanie and like her and I really think she comes from a good place. I think that I have just spent more time understanding how Albany functions and that will allow me to be more effective from the jump in this role.

There was an article about you last year, “Eli Northrup doesn’t feel like a political outsider anymore.” And at the same time, you’ve been saying that you will not be part of any political machine. How you’re trying to balance those two ideas of being very experienced within Albany, but also not a political insider?

I look at people like Senator Gustavo Rivera, who is somebody that I have known and respected, who ran against the machine in the Bronx and won and is now the chair of the health committee in the Senate.

When he legislates and when he acts, it’s on the behalf of his community because he’s not beholden to something that put him there. He doesn’t have to check — and legislators like that are who I look up to because I think that enables you to make the best decision for your constituents in every situation.

How do you think being a public defender sets you apart as a potential future assembly person? 

I think the skills really translate. 

I mean what you’re doing first and foremost as a public defender is listening to people, trying to build trust with them and then trying to advocate for them by telling their story and demonstrating their humanity. 

It takes a lot of relationship building and then a lot of fighting on behalf of another person and you’re constantly having to change your message and your methods of persuasion without losing the core values. 

And it depends on what judge you’re talking to or which prosecutor or jury. You’re going to adjust how you’re presenting an argument but you’re not losing the core of it. 

You’re constantly thinking on your feet, you’re picking up the phone at all hours, you’re in stressful situations, you’re dealing with very real problems. And you have to be there and be reliable. 

I think that those are the skills that make somebody an effective legislator. The other thing is I have to read cases, and I have to read statutes, and I have to write persuasively and make coherent, logical arguments. That’s what a lawmaker does. 

You’re amending statutes, you’re writing new statutes, and then you’re advocating and building coalitions and persuasive narratives around them to try to move them forward and to make a different reality based on that. And in the courtroom, you’re fighting for change, you’re fighting against inequity. 

That’s how I view the work. You’re trying to come to an equitable solution and stand up for somebody. And it’s the same thing in standing up for your community. And I think it’ll make me great at constituent services, but I think it will also make me effective at writing and passing legislation. 

You’ve been involved in the fight around cannabis legalization and that whole part of the criminal justice fight. I think most people would say that while legalization was the right thing to do and has been beneficial in terms of criminal justice reform, the rollout in New York State has been lacking and been uneven. How would you approach that and how do you feel like you can push the Assembly forward on that issue? 

We could do a whole interview about this subject! 

After I worked a lot on legalization— and not just legalization, the whole point of the cannabis law in New York was to repair past harm done by decades of racist policing. 

When I started in the Bronx, the number one case I handled was low-level possession of marijuana in 2015. And 90% of the people arrested at that time were Black or brown, despite the fact that usage rates were equal across races. 50% of all the people arrested were in the Bronx. 

So you got widespread usage and only certain communities being targeted. People weren’t going to jail at that time, but people were losing their jobs. People were deported. Their kids were taken away. There were serious collateral consequences that were only borne by a segment of the population. … The whole thing that brought me into policy work was that inequity. 

When we started advocating for legalization, it was about repairing harm. We’re not just gonna say, “Okay, it’s legal going forward and have at it.” 

There’s three prongs to that. And one of them was that it was totally legalized. And all past convictions were expunged automatically. New York didn’t even have expungement before cannabis legalization. So that was a huge win. It wasn’t just like it’s legal going forward and you can’t use the odor either as a pretext, which was a thing that was really important, but also we’re going to get rid of your past convictions, which New York had never done before for any crimes. 

Number two, tax revenue dedicated to communities disproportionately impacted. 40% of the tax revenue from legal cannabis sales is invested back into communities that were over-policed. 

This year, it’s going to be something like $2 billion in sales. So that’s hundreds of millions of dollars each year. It can’t just be going into the governor’s general fund. It goes back [to the communities]. And we’re going to start to see how huge that is because the market is ramping up now. That’s a big win that I think doesn’t get as much attention because it hasn’t played out yet. 

And then the third was equity and licensing. People who had been arrested and their families were first in line to get licenses. And there’s a social equity component to all licenses. After the law went into effect, I was looking around because I’d had former clients and people in the neighborhood come up and say, “Hey, I heard that we’re supposed to be able to get licenses. What should I do? How should I do it?”

 And there wasn’t an infrastructure set up to support people. So I actually went to others at my job and said, “We really need to do something about this.” And we launched a project called the Bronx Cannabis Hub. 

The whole idea was to get people, who had been previously policed, into the legal market. And we provided pro bono assistance. Nobody was charged with anything. We ended up with a cohort of 30 people. 20 of them ended up getting licenses. And now we’ve opened 16 stores. … On 94th and Amsterdam, Pure Blossoms just opened two weeks ago. Mike Rodriguez, a guy who came through the hub three years ago, finally opened his store. And I think we are going to start to see the success of that social equity program. You’re right. It has been a really bumpy rollout. 

I don’t think the Adams administration cared at all about legalization. Essentially, they said, “OK, it’s legal now. We’re not going to police at all the unlicensed shops.” 

And like we removed the criminal penalties because you don’t want anybody criminalized for selling. But I’m not in favor of the unlicensed shops because the people trying to open the licensed shops were people that were already penalized that have tried to jump through every hoop and have tried to check every box because they’re trying to do it the right way now. And the tax revenue from the legal sales is actually going back to a worthy cause. I think New York has the most social equity licensees of any state. And I think ultimately, it’s going to be seen as a success. 

I know it’s a long answer. It’s important to me because it’s a demonstration. I saw the problem. I went to Albany to advocate for it. I wrote parts of the bill. And then when it wasn’t looking like it was getting implemented correctly, I started a project to make sure that it actually got implemented so that people actually had a chance to participate. And that’s what you need to do as a legislator. It’s from the beginning all the way through the end. You can’t stop after you see the problem. You can’t stop after the bill passes. You stop when it actually gets implemented. The Assembly doesn’t have a cannabis committee. The Senate does; I would love to be part of an inaugural [member] of this committee and one that focuses on equity and ensuring that New York remains a leader in that space. 

One of the other things that you’ve talked quite a bit about in other interviews is housing and the connection between housing, safety, and criminal justice. What would you do about increasing both the housing supply but also the affordability of housing in your district? 

This study came out of Chicago and it compared eviction rates to gun violence. It found for every 1% increase in evictions within the census tract, there were 2.66 more shootings. It was the number one predictor of gun violence. And I’ve seen that as a public defender, how instability with housing leads to all these other issues. 

So I think an investment in housing is an investment in safety. And we need to start thinking about that as such, as a better investment than many of the other things we do to address community safety. It’s a combination of protecting tenants. We need robust tenant protections. We don’t have a statewide right to counsel. If you have a lawyer in housing court, you’re 84% more likely to stay in your home. So it is extremely important. … I think a study recently came out demonstrating that the version of good cause that was passed to like protect market rate tenants has like reduced big rent hikes and instability. 

And I would want to go farther and have all market-rate tenants have some form of good cause eviction. But we also need to build more as well. We need to build more housing where the city or the state owns the land or has control over the zoning or if it’s faith-based housing and you can have affordability mandates, I’m definitely in favor of that. And we also need to cut some red tape to make it so it doesn’t take so long to build because the more housing stock there is, the better it’s going to be. And the wonderful thing about this district is that there’s a lot of rent-controlled and stabilized communities that are intergenerational, that have created this feeling of people knowing each other. It doesn’t feel transient and that’s only possible when you have the government investing in housing in a way that you don’t just leave it up to the market. 

Columbia University is a massive landlord and presence in the district. I know that you’ve spoken a lot about them, their role as a neighbor, and whether or not they’re meeting that role, especially regarding the closure of the 116th cross street. What do you feel like should be your relationship with Columbia? 

I think as a local elected official, you’re ensuring that all the institutions in your community are accountable to the neighborhood and are good neighbors. 

And you invite all those institutions to be good neighbors and you build relationships with them. And if they’re not, then you use the levers of power that you have to put pressure on those institutions. I live in Morningside Heights on 111th Street. I live very close to the campus. [Closing 116th Street] has changed the dynamic of the neighborhood. And a lot of us who live in the area are upset about it.

I think it sets a bad precedent. It sets a really dangerous precedent to say you can just close the gates because the incentive is always going to be to close them. It’s not even clear that it’s legal — The city granted access to Columbia with the understanding that that would be a public walkway — and there is a current lawsuit pending. It feels like a fortress in the community. 

I don’t think it’s good for students either, because they feel disconnected from the larger Morningside Heights community. Columbia is the biggest landowner in Upper Manhattan. They get $180 million of tax breaks from the state each year because of their nonprofit status. And what we saw, unfortunately, when the Trump administration targeted them and threatened their bottom line, there was capitulation. And if Columbia is not living up to its promise and it’s not being a good neighbor to the community, then different pressure needs to be put on them. 

One other thing about Columbia, given everything that’s happened in the last three years, has been the fear among students and a lot of people in Morningside Heights around potential collaboration with ICE. How are you going make non-citizen residents of this district feel safe and how are you going to push back on ICE? 

We just saw it a couple of months ago with the abduction of [Columbia University student] Ellie Aghayeva from a Columbia building. One of the fellows on my campaign was a close friend of Ellie’s and called us that morning. We sprung into action immediately. By noon, we were at a press conference and in touch with different parties. 

And we’re lucky that she was actually released, although as I understand it, she still has an ongoing case. I’ve represented people facing deportation throughout my career. One of the first things I ask somebody when I meet them in an arraignment booth is, “What country are you from?” Because we need to take that into account as criminal defense attorneys and work with immigration attorneys to ensure that we are protecting somebody. 

The New York for All Act — which would make New York a sanctuary state — is something I’ve been working on since 2020 in anticipation of a situation like this. I think this community is united against ICE. It’s one of the uniting factors in this district, that people will not stand for that.

And I think there’s already people ready to go and push back. I think I can be a leader in that because in my background as an attorney, I’ve navigated these systems before. 

At Columbia, I still don’t think we know the full truth of what happened there, but it was a total lapse. There was this story that the ICE agents said that they were looking for a five-year-old girl and that’s how they gained entrance. … Columbia has still not released surveillance video and I don’t necessarily trust their version of events. 

I do think they didn’t necessarily step up for other students or affiliates in the past when it came to ICE abductions, and I will speak out strongly on behalf of students and non-citizens, and I know that there are a lot of residents of this district that are terrified.

I’ve sat with families who are considering appointing a guardian for their kids because they’re worried that they’re gonna get deported. And so it’s it would be a top priority for me. And I think my experience and my connections  would enable me to be effective in that area.

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