Ex-IDC Senator Tony Avella is running for city council

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Tony Avella served in the state senate and represented District 19 in the city council. He is seeking his old city council seat. AP Photo/Mike Groll, file.

Tony Avella served in the state senate and represented District 19 in the city council. He is seeking his old city council seat. AP Photo/Mike Groll, file.

By David Brand

Former Democratic State Sen. Tony Avella is running for his old City Council seat in northeast Queens, a year after his defection to the Independent Democratic Conference cost him his bid for re-election to the Senate. 

Avella represented the 11th Senate District, which includes College Point, Whitestone and Bayside, from 2011 until the end of 2018. Before being elected state senator, Avella represented District 19 in the City Council from 2002 to 2009.

He wants that council seat back, filing a city council campaign committee with the Board of Elections on Wednesday. Current District 19 Councilmember Paul Vallone is term-limited in 2021.  

In 2014, Avella joined the IDC, a breakaway faction of Democrats who caucused with Republicans and propped up a conservative majority in a chamber almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. 

The decision did not initially damage Avella’s political career — he won a second term in Albany later that year. But political currents in Queens, and across the state, shifted as Avella sought a third term. 

Backlash against the IDC among progressive voters in 2018 swept six of eight IDC members, including Avella, out of office. 

John Liu, a former City Comptroller, defeated Avella in the September 2018 Democratic primary. Avella ran on a third-party line in the general election and received 21 percent of the vote. 

Members of the progressive coalition No IDC NY criticized Avella for helping Senate Republicans block the Reproductive Health Act, delaying sanctuary state protections for immigrants and stalling affordable housing and criminal justice reforms. 

“You don't get to have a political career if you are a turncoat,” No IDC NY co-founder Susan Kang told the Eagle.

Avella also ran for New York City mayor in 2009. He could not be reached for comment on this story.