Carlos Menchaca, a progressive Brooklyn City Council member who dropped out of the mayoral race last month, has endorsed former rival Andrew Yang, in an unexpected union of two political candidates whose ideas were often diametrically opposed.
Yang held a press conference alongside Menchaca on Wednesday morning in the Democratic council member's district of Red Hook. The NY Times broke the news of the endorsement hours earlier.
"I connected to Andrew's story, which is the story of an immigrant family," said Menchaca, who is Mexican-American.
He referenced Yang's plan to create a public bank, a government controlled financial institution that would provide loans at lower interest rates and lower fees, and which Menchaca said could especially benefit immigrants.
During the event, Yang said that as mayor he would pressure wire transfer and check-cashing services like Western Union to lower their remittance fees, which are part of the charges borne by immigrants for sending money outside the country. Those fees, however, have generally been dropping in recent years.
Menchaca, who was unable to run for City Council because of term limits, positioned himself as one of the most left-leaning candidates in the mayoral race along with Dianne Morales, on issues such as protecting workers rights and defunding the police. Over the course of his City Council career, he made immigrant rights one of his central issues, pushing forward legislation to have New York City release a municipal identification card that is also available to undocumented immigrants.
But most recently, he became became known as the legislator who killed the deal to rezone Industry City, a sprawling manufacturing complex on the waterfront in Sunset Park. At the time, Menchaca said he was concerned about gentrification and the displacement of working class residents.
Yang has been a pro-business candidate. He has said he would offer tax incentives for companies willing to bring back their workforce to offices. He has criticized the failure by elected officials to bring a second Amazon headquarters to Long Island City, a plan that several prominent progressives opposed.
Asked about the opposing nature of their politics, Yang on Wednesday said he was committed to including community feedback on rezonings, and that in the Industry City case, he recognized that Menchaca was representing the interests of his constituents.
With his endorsement, Menchaca now becomes one of several notable progressive lawmakers who have chosen to back Yang. The group includes Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres, who is Yang's campaign co-chair and state Assemblymember Ron Kim.
Yang argued that the backing of those and others gives further credence to his belief that there is a new generation of New Yorkers who do not see themselves as divided strictly along ideological lines.
"When I walk the streets of New York, we care about fundamentally the same things, which is helping people," he said.
