Experience and Qualifications
Sarah worked for almost 20 years in the United States Senate for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen Kirsten Gillibrand as Deputy State Director. Previously she worked at the Monroe County Youth Bureau and Hillside Family of Agencies. Today Sarah serves as Chair of the Majority Conference in the Assembly, organizing her fellow caucus members and facilitating critical conversations to help elevate the top priorities and issues of members statewide. This upcoming year Sarah will be included in the competitive Hunt-Kean Leadership Fellows program, an initiative aimed at political leaders across the country who have the knowledge, skill and will to be effective, well-informed education policymakers at the state level.
Community Involvement
Serving as Assemblywoman ensures Sarah is active in the Rochester, Brighton and Irondequoit communities. Limited by ethics from serving directly on boards Sarah has found other ways to be involved. Informally she is active in her Maplewood neighborhood. Formally, she trained as a swim meet official for youth sports, volunteered at Summit Federal Credit Union on the nominating committee, spent eight years at United Way on the Community Impact Cabinet and Woman United Steering Committee.
Education
East High School, Bachelor of Arts at SUNY Stony Brook
Campaign Endorsements
Vote Mama, Eleanor's Legacy, ATU, AFL-CIO, Liuna, SEIU1099, PEF, CSEA, League of Conservation Voters, AFSCME Council 66, UAW, NYIC Action
Campaign Instagram
@votesarahclark
My top priority is ensuring our children and families can thrive here in New York State. This means a heavy focus on early childhood services like childcare, early intervention services, literacy and public education, both Pre-K through 12 and higher education opportunities. In light of the devastating federal budget cuts, we have to double down on affordability and access to basic needs, food insecurity, health care, and housing. And as a mom of three, protecting our environment, reducing plastic in our waste and creating clean renewable energy will always be in my top three priorities.
To address climate change we must double down on our public investments in clean energy initiatives that can power large scale projects as well as neighborhoods and smaller communities. Individually, we must make renewable power affordable and accessible for everyone, including solar, wind and geothermal. Our public institutions must lead the way, state owned facilities and SUNY and CUNY campuses must go carbon neutral.
But these plans cannot fall on the backs of those who can least afford it - we must hold polluters and utility companies accountable - with the decades of underinvestment, it is time they invest in the needed infrastructure to build the grid of the future, without increasing fees on customers. In the meantime, we must help municipalities, coastal communities, farmers and more, build resiliency into their footprints and devise plans to help with the cost of severe weather and storms.
First and foremost, we must ensure every public school is successfully teaching literacy, math, life skills, career paths and financial literacy. Education will always be the best equalizer but far too often zip codes are the determining factor as to whether a student is afforded these opportunities. This cannot be the way. We must increase our efforts to support every public school and every student as needed. As well as make higher education affordable for all.
We spend a lot of time examining our criminal justice system, how we can make it more fair for all. This means building on large efforts like bail reform, raise the age and parole reform to ensure we are reaching our goals to truly create a more "just" justice system. We need to help those who are system impacted stay connected to their families and communities. And as they separate from systems, we must individually do more to help each connect to job opportunities, get needed skills and build financial independence.
As a member of the state legislature, we are limited in our ability to fix the ramifications of Louisiana v. Callais nationally or in the states that are most egregious in voter suppression and representation. In New York we need to continue to ensure voter registration and voter access is readily available with ease to all who are eligible. We have expanded places to pre-register like at the DMV at age 16 when applying for a permit. And we have greatly increased when, where, and how people can vote. As redistricting is a big topic, NY has remained committed to protect majority minority districts and have opportunities for true representation of the constituents that reside there.
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