33rd Assembly District
Queens

clarkb@assembly.state.ny.us

Assemblywoman Clark came to the Assembly after four years in the private sector and eighteen years in the public sector. She served as a school safety supervisor and as a youth coordinator for the New York City Division for Youth Services. Mrs. Clark was well known as a parent and community activist. As a result, she came to the Assembly – her first elected public office - with a wealth of community knowledge and first-hand experience with both the challenges and the possibilities of her diverse community.

A self-described "public servant," Mrs. Clark has devoted much of her time to creating institutions, programs and policies, which will rebuild her southern Queens community. She is a force in the effort to build a comprehensive system of health care in the area and is a vocal opponent of efforts to privatize the city's public hospitals. She founded Community Care Development, Inc. and was instrumental in the establishment and development of the Family Preservation Center. These two programs work to strengthen families and communities by providing a wide variety of support services.

Education has been the cornerstone of Assemblywoman Clark's community-building efforts. She was successful in converting a failing Andrew Jackson High School into an impressive and progressive set of four magnet high schools. Currently, she continues to lead the fight to further enhance the programs at the magnet schools and to spread the lessons of their success to other schools.

Assemblywoman Clark was a prime sponsor of the New York City School Governance Law, which mandates parental involvement in decision-making, school-based budgeting and stricter standards and assessments. Mrs. Clark is also the Assembly's representative to the Education Commission of the States, where she has served on the Steering Committee for five years.

Mrs. Clark was an early supporter of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case that was recently decided. CFE's long struggle to obtain adequate educational funding for New York City has helped to bring inequities in the State's education funding formula to the forefront. Notably, Assemblywoman Clark was the only state legislator to testify at the trial.

As part of her advocacy for children and families, Mrs. Clark has made great efforts to expand the Child Health Insurance Program, expand day care funding, and guarantee funding for at-risk students. Furthermore, she is an avid promoter of intergenerational day care programs in her community and throughout the state.

Assemblywoman Clark has been a strong supporter of recent immigrants, pointing out that immigrants have always been the bedrock of American prosperity. She has fought to maintain and enhance bilingual education and protect the public assistance benefits of immigrants, many of whom reside in the 33rd District United Nations.

Assemblywoman Clark has taken the lead in seeking to resolve the environmental and health problems associated with inadequate sewer systems in her community and to bring about long-promised improvements to the transit system in southern Queens. Furthermore, she has been active in efforts to have oil spills which threaten Queens' public water system cleaned up and to ensure that New York State's environmental laws are not weakened.

From 1997 through December of 2000, Mrs. Clark was Chair of the Assembly Committee on Aging. In this capacity, she served as the Assembly's chief spokesperson for New York's 3.2 million seniors and continuously advocated for a better quality of life for New York's seniors.

In her first two years as Chair, Mrs. Clark led the effort to defeat the Governor's proposed cuts to Medicaid community-based services and steered to passage landmark legislation which tracks instances of elder abuse and recommends a holistic approach to dealing with this growing problem. Mrs. Clark was a strong advocate for housing opportunities and community-based services that can allow seniors to remain in their neighborhoods.

Assemblywoman Clark also promoted legislation to safeguard seniors from financial exploitation and home equity fraud. Just last year, Mrs. Clark's bill protecting seniors from fraudulent telemarketers was signed into law.

In the spring of 1999, Assemblywoman Clark was elected Chair of the New York State Legislative Women's Caucus. The Legislative Women's Caucus is an organization of all women elected to the New York State Legislature. Today, 45 women serve in both the Assembly and the Senate.

Through the Caucus, women State Legislators work to improve the participation of women in all areas of government, support issues that affect and benefit women in New York State, and provide a network of support for women in the State Legislature. One of the priorities for the Caucus in the 2001 legislative session is reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws.

A vocal advocate for women, Assemblywoman Clark has been steadfast in her support for a woman's right to choose. In 1997, after a four-year struggle, she secured passage of a bill to make female genital mutilation a state crime.

Assemblywoman Clark is currently a member of the Assembly Committees on Children and Families, Education, and Labor. Furthermore, she has served as Chair of the Assembly Committee on State/Federal Relations and is a member of the Majority Steering Committee and the Democratic Study Group of the New York State Assembly.

In August of 1997, Assemblywoman Clark was named Vice-Chair of the Education, Labor and Job Training Committee of the Assembly on Federal Issues of the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL). She had previously served as Vice-Chair for the Social Services Committee of the NCSL.

Mrs. Clark, born June 12, 1939 in Beckley, West Virginia, is the daughter of a coal miner (and union activist) and a health care administrator. She and her husband, Thomas Clark, Jr., have four grown children, Jan, Crystal, Thomas III and Brian. The Clark's have a four year-old granddaughter named Taylor.

Standing Committee Assignments 2001: Children and Families; Education; Labor.

Barbara M. Clark, Dem. 30,866; Lib. 664
Robert M. Hutchison, Rep. 3,224; Ind. 237; Con. 390