National Women’s Liberation endorses Diana Moreno for New York State Assembly District 36

Diana Moreno is the strongest candidate in this race because she directly confronts the forces making life harder for working women and families—and brings an organizer’s approach to governing, fighting for material relief through a government accountable to the people, not elite donors. 

→ Read National Women’s Liberation’s interview with Diana Moreno

This is a moment of political crisis, but also one of real possibility. Zohran Mamdani’s victory, the growing strength of the left New York City and state politics, and the expanded presence of DSA in the legislature have clarified what the government can do when there is progressive pressure and political will. 

We cannot allow that momentum to stall as entrenched interests that have long dominated Albany push back. This is a moment to build power for the people and to elect representatives that will fight for us. 

We are overworked and stretched to our limits by the soaring costs of housing, child care, health care, groceries, while our state government remains in thrall to real estate interests and a corporate donor class that raises rents, cuts care, and squeezes labor.  

As ICE terrorizes our communities and profit and power continue to consolidate, women are expected to pick up the pieces and fill the gaps. Families are leaving NYC in droves. Child care costs rival rent. Housing costs push people into shelters or out of the city altogether, and women’s lives are constricted by unpaid care work, artificial scarcity, and constant fear. An increasingly aggressive police state and immigration enforcement regime keep people in their homes, away from school, and out of work through threat of detention, deportation, and violence.   

These are not personal failures. They are politically produced conditions. 

They persist because immigrants’ and women’s underpaid and unpaid labor is built into the system — allowing the state to avoid providing basic necessities, employers to suppress wages, and wealth to accumulate at the top.

Diana comes out of a tradition of political organizing and analysis that names these conditions clearly and organizes to dismantle them. 

As a college student in Gainesville, she fought alongside farm workers and her graduate student union for labor protections, while working with NWL to win material gains for women — including the campaign to make the Morning After pill available over the counter.   

In NWL, Diana learned a political framework grounded in asking fundamental questions: Who benefits? Who pays? What kind of power is needed to bring real change?

She carried this framework forward as an immigrant worker organizer in Queens, fighting wage theft, supporting undocumented workers, and building collective power with some of the most exploited and vulnerable workers in the city. She later continued this work with the nurses union, one of the most women-led sectors in the state. Now, as a working mother, she is stepping up at a moment when the stakes for women and families could not be higher. 

Diana understands the State Assembly as a site of struggle, not careerism or prestige. She will govern as an organizer, bringing women, unions, and immigrant communities directly into the legislative process.  

There are other progressive candidates in this race. But politics is not only about where you stand — it’s about how you build power, who you are accountable to, and what relationships you bring with you into office. Diana’s endorsements matter because they reflect real long-standing relationships with organizations rooted in working-class, feminist, immigrant, and labor struggles. They signal not just shared values, but shared strategy, trust built over time, and the capacity to act collectively once in office.

Power in Albany is centralized and designed to protect the status quo, limiting the influence of individual legislators who challenge real estate interests, the corporate elite, and donor power.

We are told that there is not enough money — for health care, schools, housing, a functioning subway. But scarcity is a political choice. Trillions are spent on immigration enforcement, policing, imperialism, and war, while all other funding is slashed and states are told to “tighten their belts,” shifting costs onto families. Even when these decisions are made at the federal level, their consequences are felt locally, with women absorbing cuts, fear, and instability. And when New Yorkers demand that billionaires pay their fair share, the state refuses to raise taxes on the rich. 

That’s why it matters that Diana is running as an organizer with a cohort capable of building power, advancing legislation, and remaining accountable to their constituents. This campaign brings movement thinking into government and builds real leverage in Albany after years of ineffective, centrist Democratic leadership.

She is not entering this struggle. She is already in the fight.

Diana Moreno is fighting for:

• Universal childcare, including fully funded 2-Care and universal 3-Care, so that caregiving is treated as a shared responsibility – not a private burden borne by individual women
• Healthcare and housing as rights, breaking our dependence on employers, marriage, or immigration status for basic survival
• Strong immigrant protections, so families can live, work, and send children to school without fear of detention or deportation

Elections matter when they put movement leaders where decisions are made. Every gain we have won has come from everyday people confronting those who profit from our exploitation. 

The forces against us are well-funded and ruthless. That reality demands clarity, ambition, and strategy — because politics as usual will not win us freedom.

A vote for Diana Moreno is a vote to bring organizing into government and build power where it has been systematically denied.

That is why National Women’s Liberation proudly endorses Diana Moreno for State Assembly.