New York State Senator Thomas K. Duane represents the 29th State Senatorial District, which includes much of Manhattan's West Side from 77th Street to Battery Park, and sections of East Midtown, the Lower East Side, Little Italy and Chinatown. First elected to the State Senate in 1998, he became the Senate's first openly-gay and first openly HIV-positive member. Prior to his election to the State Senate, Duane served for seven years in the New York City Council as its first openly-gay and openly HIV-positive member.
Senator Duane is the Ranking Minority Member on the Committee on Codes and the Ranking Minority Member on the Crime Victims, Crime, and Corrections Committee. The Senator has been a passionate advocate for reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, elimination of stereotypes and myths regarding HIV and AIDS in prison, and for reformation of the State's enormous prison system to make it fairer and more humane, and offer more opportunities for rehabilitation. He has also fought for putting measures in place which offer alternatives to incarceration for those convicted of crimes who, because of substance abuse, domestic violence, or their youth, more appropriately require treatment other than imprisonment. On the Investigations, Taxation, and Government Operations Committee Duane will be able to fight for passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act, which he has introduced, and for several bills he has introduced to reform the manner in which liquor licenses are granted by the State Liquor Authority (SLA). In 1999 and 2000, Duane served as a Senate Minority negotiator for the Human Services portion of the budget.
In his first term in the State Senate, several important measures for which Senator Duane had fought were passed, some having been blocked for many years. In 2000 the Senate passed the Hate Crimes Protection Act, increasing penalties and requiring statewide tracking of hate crimes, which had been blocked in the State Senate for 11 years, as well as the Work Study Internship bill, allowing public assistance recipients to fulfill their work fare requirements at schools they attend rather than to be forced to drop out. The Senator had introduced versions of both bills. In the 1999-2000 session, the Senate also passed landmark clinic access, gun control, health care protection, and sexual assault reform legislation, all of which Senator Duane had fought for or co-sponsored. He has also introduced legislation to extend protections for rent regulated and loft-dwelling tenants; to help protect women from sexual assaults in the workplace; to eliminate sweatshop conditions; to reform the SLA; to require State projects in New York City conform with local zoning; to require tolls for trucks on the city's East River bridges; and to increase disabled accessibility to stores throughout New York State. Tom Duane is also a staunch advocate for further campaign finance and health care reform, as well as for changing State funding formulas which deny New York City its fair share of State funding for education, mass transit, transportation, and other vital services.
As both a State Senator and City Council member, he has consistently fought against over development in the Manhattan neighborhoods he represents, and for improvement of park and recreation resources. Senator Duane has been a vocal opponent of proposals to build a new Stadium on the West Side of Manhattan, citing traffic, pollution, and overcrowding. He has fought for development of maximum park space, particularly along the Hudson River waterfront. In 1996, he and a coalition of neighborhood activists successfully blocked the siting of an aircraft carrier/heliport in the planned Hudson River Park, and he and neighborhood activists successfully fought for the creation of the Chelsea Waterside Park within the park that is now being built. Mr. Duane also secured funding for renovation of parks across the district he represented. The Senator has also pushed the City to take measures to reduce the amount of traffic entering Manhattan, which has increased dramatically in recent years, particularly large commercial traffic illegally using residential streets.
As a member of the New York City Council, Tom Duane secured the passage in 1997 of the Division of AIDS Services (DAS) Bill, which codified in law the requirement that the city provide a broad range of basic services to people with AIDS. He has since worked with activists who have fought the city in court to abide by the provisions of the law. Since 1998, Senator Duane has served as a member of the New York State AIDS Advisory Task Force. He also secured passage of legislation on the Council he had introduced banning discrimination in housing against recipients of certain types of public assistance, as well as a change in the city's Nuisance Abatement law, making it easier for the city to close down establishments with a proven record of criminal activity on the premises.
In 1994, Senator Duane unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the 8th Congressional District in Manhattan and Brooklyn, making him the first openly-gay and openly HIV-positive candidate for Congress. A resident of the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan since 1976, beginning in 1982, Tom Duane was elected to four terms as Male Democratic District Leader in the 64th Assembly District. The Senator also served for seven years on his local community board. Born in 1955 at the old French Hospital on 30th Street in Chelsea, Senator Duane was raised in Queens, and is a lifetime New Yorker. He attended Lehigh University, where he earned a degree in Urban Studies and American Studies.
