Brad Lander

... to deny someone a job because they have student loans? Or because huge hospital bills from an injury forced them into bankruptcy? Or because they were a victim of identity theft?

Many employers in New York City and across the country routinely use credit reports to discriminate against job...

More than just about anything else we do in New York City government, our public schools reflect a shared commitment to our city's future. For me, our schools are a place of real civic magic, where our kids learn to be tomorrow's innovators, leaders, writers, engineers, teachers, and citizens. I...

At the City Council's budget hearing a year ago, I asked Commissioner Kelly for basic budget information on the NYPD's counterintelligence programs. How much are we spending? How many officers? Where are they working? Under what authority? He did not provide any specific answers.

Last fall, at...

Over the last several months, a string of sexual assaults, ranging from groping to rape, shook the Park Slope, Sunset Park, and Windsor Terrace communities.

The response from neighbors has been inspiring. Grassroots organizations emerged -- Safe Slope, Brooklyn Bike Patrol, KWT Canine Watch, and...

Big-box home improvement chain Lowe's attaches the tagline "Never Stop Improving" to its television ads. But this week, Lowe's corporate self-improvement efforts ground to a halt when it caved to pressure from an anti-Muslim organization and pulled its advertising from the reality show "All-American...

Like all New Yorkers, I want the NYPD working hard to keep us safe -- in our neighborhoods and across the city. We want them to have a robust counter-terrorism program that uses a mix of technology and human intelligence to investigate leads, and to seek to prevent attacks before...

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, had a great op-ed in yesterday's New York Times, on "The New Progressive Movement."

Sachs believes that the Occupy Wall Street movement suggests the coming of a third progressive era in American politics (after the Progressive Era,...

This post was co-written by Samira Rajan, chief executive officer of Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union.

This Saturday, November 5 is "Transfer Day." Around the country, inspired by Occupy Wall Street's focus on the need to hold financial institutions accountable, people are moving their bank accounts from behemoths like Bank...

Last week, a New York Times, CBS News poll revealed that faith in government is at an all-time low, with a whopping 89 percent of Americans reporting that they don't trust government to do the right thing. There are many reasons for this: stagnation in Washington, even as...

Labor Day is a time to be with family and enjoy the end of summer (and maybe spend time stuck in traffic). But I will be doing one more thing on Labor Day this year -- thinking about workers and the state of unions in our country.

Unemployment is at...

On June 15th, rent regulations that protect nearly three million New York City tenants will expire.

Democratic officials overwhelmingly support strengthening the rent laws, since their constituents rely on them. Upstate Republicans oppose a strong renewal, ideologically yes, but also because -- as the head of the landlords' lobby said...

By Councilmember Brad Lander and Rabbi Andy Bachman

Forty-three years ago this month, our nation watched the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. The images were seared into our minds, along with the sense that our nation had lost a beacon of hope in the ongoing struggle...

There is a lot of activity this weekend to show support for two important progressive causes, and I am proud to be taking part in both.

Over the past month, we've seen women's reproductive freedom and health care come under assault, most notably from John Boehner's House of Representatives...

The tragic shooting in Arizona earlier this month has caused us all to reflect on the plague of gun violence in our society, and the need for greater civility in our political discourse. We laud the Mayor for his longstanding leadership and tireless efforts to get illegal guns off of...

Cross-posted from TheNation.com.

It's been a busy few days in Washington. While I'm thrilled about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the extension of unemployment benefits, I remain extremely disappointed about the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts to the very wealthiest households. It will cause...

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I had the chance to see Inside Job - Charles Ferguson's stinging indictment of the financial sector during the global financial crisis of 2008. It left me angry once again about how the explosion of predatory lending, combined with all the wrong incentives in the financial sector,...

Mike Bloomberg's nomination of Cathie Black as schools chancellor is not only a bad personnel move. It is a symbol of a critical choice we are facing: Are our public schools a place to educate well-rounded citizens for the New York City of tomorrow? Or are they the junior academy...

On Wall Street bonuses are back. Bolstered by a government bailout in the hundreds of billions, New York City's financial sector is once again riding high. But just off of Wall Street, neighborhoods across New York City are struggling to pull out of an economic crisis that has left too...