After serving as a North Hempstead town council member, Anna Kaplan was elected to the New York State Senate in 2018 as the representative for New York’s Seventh District.
She represents me in Great Neck and has a district than spans through Roslyn, Port Washington, Westbury, and Mineola.
In just her first term, filled with challenges no one could have anticipated, she has been an incredibly active representative who deserves to be re-elected and is poised to do even more in her second term.
Considering the tumult caused by the pandemic, Sen. Kaplan’s first term might be best evaluated through the lens of what she did before the outbreak and what she has done since. Still, the common thread throughout her entire term has been that she has been focused on delivering for her constituents.
In her first year in office, Sen. Kaplan played a pivotal role to ensure the passage of the Reproductive Health Act, crucial gun safety measures, and she sponsored anti-hate crimes legislation. Each broke new ground.
One of Sen. Kaplan’s first votes as our representative was in support of the Reproductive Health Act, which codified Roe v. Wade as New York State law.
Prior to its passage, abortion was regulated by our state’s criminal code and, despite our state’s perceived political leanings in national elections, a Republican majority in our State Senate had blocked the bill’s passage for over a decade.
The new measure makes abortion legal for up to 24 weeks and permits the same after that period if the mother’s health or life is at risk or if the fetus is not viable.
Similarly active on issues related to gun safety, Anna focused her efforts on a number of legislative actions aimed to keep our community safe.
One specific accomplishment championed by Senator Kaplan was accomplished through her work to help make the Red Flag Law the law of the land in our state. The legislation sets a balance between one’s right to bear arms, and the risks posed when guns get into the wrong hands.
Sen. Kaplan championed the measure, which sets up a process where a concerned family member or school official can petition a civil court to remove firearms from individuals who pose a serious threat to themselves or others.
The policy recognizes that in many tragedies, such as the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, those closest to an assailant may have advance notice of the threat they may pose.
Sen. Kaplan also served as the lead sponsor on two Senate bills to add hate crime awareness education to our school. Undoubtedly personally moved by her own history as a Jewish refugee from Iran, the legislation will focus on a variety of different forms of discrimination.
The bill specifically focuses on combatting antisemitism at a time when it is especially needed in our state following a year when a man was murdered by a knife-wielding assailant who broke into a synagogue in Monsey, Jews were regularly attacked on the streets in Brooklyn, and Nazi graffiti was found on multiple instances in public places throughout Nassau County.
Shifting to her action since the start of the pandemic, Sen. Kaplan has been laser-focused during a time when we have needed our public officials most. At the height of the pandemic, her office published COVID-related updates daily, providing easily digestible information for her constituents to take the necessary precautions to keep themselves and their families safe.
She has also been especially active in supporting our state’s economic recovery. Serving as the Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Economic Development and Small Business, she has designed a number of smart policies aimed at supporting the staples of our local economy these past few months.
The variety of bills she has introduced include providing sales tax exemptions for the purchase of PPE, extending business interruption insurance coverage, and permitting small businesses to make contributions into tax-deferred savings accounts for later withdrawal without tax consequences to invest in their employees during times of economic hardship. These sorts of specifically tailored actions are exactly what is needed from our elected representatives.
Sen. Kaplan’s dedication to serving her constituents and ability to act on behalf of our needs have been clear throughout her first term. She approaches her responsibilities as a public servant very seriously, and with the experiences and seniority she has gained, will be able to build on her successes in a second term.
I am proudly supporting Sen. Anna Kaplan for re-election and I hope you will too.
Peter Fishkind
Great Neck
This article is so inaccurate. She has discriminated again religious and medical fragile children. She supported a bill that took away an education due to a person’s religious beliefs. She also refuse to cosponsor a bill that would allow medical fragile children back in school too. These children have regressed because they no longer have access to their therapies such as speech, physical, and occupational. For one family, they were abled to get their disabled child back into school because they sued. No family should have to sue so their disabled kid can have an education.
Second because Kaplan supported the bail reform, Nassau county crime rates have gone up. In Manhattan my mother was within hours of being harmed had she stayed in the area. The rioters came and smashed everything. Kaplan’s support of bail reformed is putting my family in danger. On top of the bail reform, she wants to defund the police? Who is going to protect us when there are more cops?. Law abiding citizens like our family will have to suffer.
She is not a person that listen or cares about her constituents. I have tried to get an appointment with her, but it seems she keeps on dodging me. When I finally got an appointment, she was a no show. Other people that have met with her have been yelled at by her. You just don’t do that as a public servant. You also do not run zoom meetings to help small businesses during covid, and roll your eyes at the people. This shows a lack of care, lack of character, and unprofessionalism.
She also lacks integrity when she says one thing, yet does something else. For example, she says she wants to help human trafficking. Yet she supports a prostitution bill. She lies and says she cares about children yet she wants to destroy the children by supporting two out of the six sex ed bills. Seriously? These kids cannot do simple acadamics. They have no critical thinking skills and can’t seem to write a paper when they get into college. Kids do not need to learn about these things, especially starting from first grade. Is she grooming our children so they can be legally “tafficked”?
A person like this does not deserve to be in office. We need people that care about the community and actually serve the community. “We the People” should be treated with respect just like “We the People” respect her. We do not need someone that chooses politics over people. We need someone that chooses PEOPLE over politics. And you can be sure that I will NOT vote for her and I will let my community know not to as well.