There are many issues at stake on this Election Day in New York City, but for some voters, informed consent, bodily autonomy, and the rights of individuals to make their own medical decisions are paramount. For those voters, the choice for mayor is clear:
Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, opposed the City’s 2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandates and related policies that adversely affected workers and small business owners in the city from the beginning.
He marched with municipal workers over the Brooklyn Bridge to oppose the mandates in 2021, and he has consistently supported reinstating City workers who lost their jobs under those mandates ever since.
Sliwa reiterated his promise to rehire those workers if elected mayor just a few days ago, when I spoke with him at a campaign stop at the Sultan Jamia mosque in the Bronx, in the video above.
Sliwa’s Democratic Party and independent rivals have taken the opposite position on workplace medical mandates.
John Macari got socialist Democratic Party candidate Zohran Mamdani on the record about his views on mandates and worker reinstatement back in April. Mamdani explained that he would not be inclined to reinstate workers fired under vaccine mandates and wanted to retain the government’s ability to impose such workplace mandates in the future:
Andrew Cuomo has not responded to questions about whether he would reinstate workers fired under vaccine mandates, but his history with the issue makes his position clear. Cuomo was the first governor in the nation to announce a state-level COVID-19 vaccine mandate without a testing option, in July 2021. He also advocated widespread school and workplace mandates then, before any vaccine had FDA approval, and urged businesses to bar unvaccinated New Yorkers from entry. You can learn more about his record on the issue here:
Curtis Sliwa has been supported and endorsed by numerous organizations and individuals representing New Yorkers who were adversely affected by the City’s COVID-era mandates and related policies, including Macari, Bravest for Choice, Teachers for Choice, and Danny Hulkower.
Teachers for Choice has endorsed Sliwa and numerous other candidates down-ballot, and has published a guide for medical-freedom-minded voters:
There are a few candidates I would add to the Teachers for Choice list, since they have come out in support of the “reinstate and compensate” movement to put City workers who lost their jobs under the mandates back to work:
Peter Kefalas, Republican, for New York City Comptroller
Janine Acquafredda, Republican, for Brooklyn Borough President
Elijah Diaz, Republican, for City Council in Brooklyn’s 45th District
John Buthorn, Patriot Workers Party, for City Council in Staten Island’s 51st District
You can watch them speak about the issue here:
You can find more video coverage of 2025 candidates and interviews with voters here on Firsthand Media and on my YouTube channel, nycforyourself.
