Since the Office of the Public Advocate was created in 1993, skeptical taxpayers, elected officials and editorial writers have questioned its purpose and even doubted that it should continue to exist.

The three people who have occupied the office, Mark Green, Betsy Gotbaum and currently, Bill de Blasio, have all...

It was one of the hottest days of July in 2010, and I was out on the campaign trail passing out flyers and meeting voters. I was the first South Asian woman in the country to run for US Congress, and I was on a mission to shake every hand...

Inside the historic walls of Temple Emanu-el last week, New Yorkers remembered Mayor Koch as many things: a fighter, a politician, a man of candor and color, an amalgamation of the qualities that make this city great.

I will always remember Ed Koch as the man who saved my parents...

Over the past couple of years, I have tweeted and posted to Facebook about how the American economy is not working for the powerless, mainly young people: each day, the unemployment rate for young people creeps higher and higher (average is 18.4%, 45% for African American youth, and

No facet of our country's immigration debate is more heartless or economically foolish than our failure to support undocumented children who have grown up on American soil. These young people have gone to school alongside their native-born peers and in many cases have shown themselves to be outstanding scholars, athletes...

Just over five years ago, a young college student in New York City started dreaming up a new social software application inspired by the chaotic cacophony of taxicab communications in the city. While many of his peers were at their school's career services office trying to find a job, he...

If your car breaks down and someone recommends a mechanic to repair it, the first question you're likely to ask is: Can I trust the mechanic? Today, our nation's economic engine has stalled, and it's unclear that we can trust those in Congress responsible for getting us on the road...

Yesterday, the Washington Post published a front-page story calling me an "Ivy-educated, Wall Street veteran" who is "embracing Wall Street" in a bid to unseat my opponent, 18-year incumbent Carolyn Maloney, in the Democratic primary. In an all too familiar media distortion that favors process over policy, this...

Last July, President Obama announced Race to the Top, an educational grant competition to provide critical funds to states that make concerted reform efforts, including provisions for performance-based teacher evaluations and expanding the cap on charter schools. What unfolded was a familiar political battle. Interest groups and union officials took...

Of the many security challenges facing the United States - a nuclear Iran, a resurgent Taliban, a more sophisticated ring of international cyber terrorists - what I find equally alarming is what I recently discovered in India's Southern state of Kerala. Attending a friend's wedding there last year, in a...

James Madison once wrote, "America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged immigration most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts."

It's no wonder that New York City became the economic epicenter of the United States, and...

It's hard to imagine what America would be like today without Democrats who, over the years, refused to surrender their core principles.

In times of political turmoil, when difficult decisions were required, Democrats stood their ground and fought hard for the Civil Rights Act, Social Security, Medicaid, Head Start,...

In September 1930, 11 months after Black Tuesday, the Three Stooges released their first feature film, "Soup to Nuts." America badly needed some lighthearted clowning to get through the dark days of the Great Depression, and the Stooges provided it. Today, as we work to climb out of the Great...

E.B. White once wrote that New York is "by all odds the loftiest of cities. It even managed to reach the highest point in the sky at the lowest moment of the depression."

Those words are worth remembering today.

In its many incarnations over the past 400 years - from...