Jo Anne Simon

Political Party: Democrat

District: New York State Assembly District 52

Notable Position: Chair of the Committee on Mental Health

Jo Anne Simon was born in October 1952 and grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Yonkers, New York, as the oldest girl in a family of five. She has called Brooklyn home since 1981 and earned a reputation as an effective community leader throughout the borough.

Simon is a nationally recognized expert in disability civil rights advocacy. In the early 1990s, she volunteered to draft wills for HIV-positive clients and won the first succession rights case in DHCR in 1992, preventing a man from eviction following his partner's death from AIDS. She was also the lead sponsor of the Extreme Risk Protection Order or "red flag" bill in 2019, landmark gun violence prevention legislation.

Her advocacy extends to environmental justice, affordable housing, street safety, and access to education. She served as President of the Boerum Hill Association and was a founder or co-founder of numerous organizations, including the Downtown Brooklyn Coalition, Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, and the Association on Higher Education and Disability , where she serves as general counsel.

Education

Simon is the first in her family to attend college. She graduated from Iona College with a Bachelor's Degree in Communication Sciences and earned a Master's Degree in Education of the Deaf from Gallaudet University. She obtained her law degree from Fordham University School of Law, completing her studies at night while working full-time.

Political Experience

After law school, Simon established a disability civil rights law firm in Downtown Brooklyn and worked as an adjunct assistant professor of law at Fordham University. She also served as a judicial law secretary and taught in Hofstra University School of Law's clinical program.

In 2014, Simon was elected district leader and state committeewoman for the 52nd Assembly District. She was sworn into the New York State Assembly on January 1, 2015, and now serves as Chair of the Committee on Mental Health. She has been instrumental in reforming the Brooklyn borough Democratic Party by opening semi-annual meetings to the public and eliminating unilateral control of the King's County machine. In 2022, she was a candidate for Congress in New York's newly redrawn 10th congressional district.