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Rachel Storch brings a unique story and strengths to her campaign for City Council on Manhattan’s East Side: A personal journey that underscores her deep love for New York City. A lifelong commitment to public service. And an impressive record of leadership and effectiveness as a three-term state legislator.
Rachel’s commitment to public service began from the moment she graduated from law school. Her first two jobs were as an Americorps VISTA attorney and an attorney for legal aid where she worked diligently to help low-income community members access health care through Medicaid and get the social service support they needed. In 2000, Rachel went to work for one of her mentors—Jean Carnahan, the first woman to represent Missouri in the United States Senate. She rose to become Senator Carnahan’s Deputy Chief of Staff, with a broad policy portfolio that included Education, Criminal Justice and Public Safety, Immigration, and Judicial nominations.
In 2004, inspired by Senator Carnahan, Rachel won election to the Missouri legislature as a State Representative. She quickly emerged as one of the strongest voices in the legislature and one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars. She became a Deputy Whip of the Democratic caucus and used her coveted position on the Budget Committee to deliver for her constituents. Strongly pro-choice, she championed issues important to children and families, as well as ethics reforms, and during each election cycle helped to oversee voter protection efforts. In 2008, she was asked and was proud to serve as the State Director for Hillary Clinton for President.
After three productive terms in the legislature, Rachel fell in love with a New Yorker and moved to the East Side in 2010 to marry and start a family here. She and her husband, Barry, are parents to four wonderful kids—and Rachel’s role as a mom will always be the most important to her. The desire to build a stronger and safer New York for her children is one of the things that drives her today—and it’s what fueled her interest in running for the City Council.
For the past five years, Rachel has been proud to serve as the Chief Operating Officer of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, a thriving and historically significant synagogue on the Upper East Side. Prior to that, she worked at the 92nd Street Y, a world-class cultural and community center that has served New Yorkers of all ages, races, and faiths for more than 150 years.
Rachel was born in Manhattan—her father grew up in Queens and her parents married while he was a graduate student at NYU—and her family has called New York City home for generations. For her great-grandparents—like so many hardworking immigrants—who came here from Lithuania, Ukraine, and Austria at the turn of the twentieth century, New York was the bustling city that offered a path to a better life and a better future for their kids.
Rachel is running for City Council to make sure New York continues to be that place—and to strengthen our neighborhoods and preserve the things that make the East Side special. Rachel will work with law enforcement to make our subways and our community safer and she believes strongly in investing more in mental health care and services. And she will continue to be a champion for children and families, whether that’s improving our schools or ensuring that pre-K and 3-k are available to every parent and child who wants it.
Rachel will tackle affordability issues—especially the rising cost of housing and child care—that are forcing so many to consider leaving the City. She’ll give special attention to quality-of-life concerns in our neighborhood, from reckless e-bikers to the spread of illegal weed stores.
And as someone who lost members of her own family in the Holocaust, Rachel is acutely attuned to the alarming rise of antisemitism in New York City and across the country. She is committed to continuing to fight hate crime — in all its ugly forms — on the City Council.
Rachel lives with her husband, Barry, and their four children on the Upper East Side. She’s a graduate of Harvard College and Washington University School of Law, where she was an Olin Fellow.
Rachel Storch is running for City Council with a clear agenda that addresses the concerns she hears about most from families throughout the East Side and issues that are critically important to the entire city. Her priorities include:
PUBLIC SAFETY
From her first day as a legislator, Rachel has always understood that ensuring public safety is the most essential responsibility of any elected official. Today, no matter what the latest statistics say about various categories of crime, New Yorkers don’t feel as safe as they should. Changing that requires a broad range of crime prevention measures that includes a well-run, accountable and fully-funded police force. On the City Council, she’ll stand up against any effort to defund law enforcement and support new initiatives to end gun violence. She’ll give special focus to sexual assault and violence against again women. Rachel will also work to increase investment in mental health care—both as a moral obligation to get help to people in crisis and as matter of public safety.
HOUSING
With the median rent in Manhattan now over $4,000 a month, the cost of calling New York home is out of reach for too many families. Nothing is more important than building more housing to expand supply and hold costs down. From Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village to Waterside Plaza, our district has long been known for its pioneering role in providing affordable housing to middle income families. On the City Council, Rachel will work to protect tenants and preserve rent-stabilized and Mitchell-Lama housing. And she’ll work to expand paths to homeownership for working families and find ways to keep those on the edge of homelessness in their apartments.
EDUCATION
Rachel Storch has always been a champion of public education at every level. On the City Council, she’ll work to invest in our schools’ most pressing needs—from upgrading facilities to reducing class sizes to supporting our teachers in the classroom. She will fight to protect and expand New York’s 3-k and pre-k programs which are so critical in ensuring that all our kids get off to a strong start. She is deeply committed to ensuring access to early literacy interventions, particularly in under-resourced communities, and she’ll work with groups like Read Alliance to help in that mission. Rachel will also be a strong voice for making sure children with special needs or learning differences get the services they need early on. She supports bringing more guidance and mental health professionals into our schools. Rachel will seek out and amplify initiatives that offer leadership and skills development for teens, knowing that this can profoundly impact their future. And Rachel is a strong advocate for legislation to force digital platforms to better protect kids from the harm social media can do.
ABORTION RIGHTS
Rachel Storch will bring to the City Council an unwavering record protecting abortion rights and women’s reproductive freedom. As a progressive legislator, she stood up repeatedly against anti-choice measures—voting against onerous new requirements on doctors providing abortions and opposing legislation that would allow pharmacists to refuse to provide emergency contraception. Endorsed by Planned Parenthood in every race, she will be a powerful pro-choice leader on the City Council.
ANTI-SEMITISM & HATE CRIMES
As the COO of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue and someone who lost family members in the Holocaust, Rachel Storch is acutely aware of the rise of anti-semitism in New York and across the country. She will aggressively call out and shine a spotlight on acts of anti-semitism—and anti-LGBTQ and anti-Asian bigotry, islamophobia, and hate in all its forms—in order to reduce them and educate the public about the enduring danger they pose.
QUALITY OF LIFE
As our next City Councilmember, Rachel Storch will work every day to strengthen our neighborhoods and preserve the things that make the East Side special. In a district that’s a mecca of museums and cultural institutions, she’ll make sure the city fully funds the arts and our public libraries. Rachel will work to end the scaffolding blight with tougher penalties for those who leave scaffolding and sidewalk sheds up too long. She’ll make sure law enforcement has the legal authority they need to shut down illegal weed stores. And as a mother of four, Rachel will give added attention to safety concerns in our neighborhood starting with stiffer enforcement of laws to crack down on reckless e-bikers and demanding accountability from the delivery app companies who enable them.
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