Antonio Reynoso: Policy Positions
Antonio Reynoso is a progressive whose policy identity is anchored in housing, environmental justice, and policing reform, shaped by his upbringing in a poor immigrant household in South Williamsburg. As he campaigns for Congress in 2026, his positions have expanded to national issues, including immigration and Puerto Rico policy. The list below walks through his major policy positions, with citations to primary or strong secondary sources for each one.
A note up front: Reynoso is aligned with the institutional, Working Families Party wing of New York's left rather than the Democratic Socialists of America wing. On many issues, his substantive positions overlap with those further to his left; the differences are often more about approach and coalition than about core policy. Where positions are contested or evolving, that's flagged in the text.
Housing and development
Reynoso is one of New York's more prominent pro-housing progressives, associated with the "Yes In My Backyard" (YIMBY) movement that favors increased housing density 1. His housing positions include:
Support for higher-density development in transit-rich areas and neighborhoods where housing production has lagged, particularly large swaths of Southern Brooklyn where almost no new housing was built between 2010 and 2020 2.
Ending parking minimums, which require developers to build parking, and reducing car infrastructure in favor of housing, transit, trees, and bike lanes 3.
A preference for comprehensive, borough-wide planning over piecemeal, project-by-project rezoning battles, embodied in his Comprehensive Plan for Brooklyn 2,4.
Reynoso's housing policies are nuanced. As a council member, he championed the Bushwick Community Plan, a community-led rezoning that proposed moderate growth, transit-oriented development along commercial corridors, and below-market-rate units, in contrast to a larger de Blasio administration proposal 5. He has framed this as community-supported "moderate growth" rather than either no-growth or developer-driven overdevelopment 6.
He has also shown an unusual willingness, for a progressive, to engage with the financial realities of development. In one 2026 land-use recommendation, he included a detailed analysis of developer financing and required investment yields, an approach that drew notice for treating housing economics seriously rather than rhetorically 1.
Environmental justice
Environmental justice is a defining theme of Reynoso's record, rooted in the disproportionate concentration of waste-processing burdens in low-income communities of color. His positions include:
Equitable distribution of the city's waste-processing burden across neighborhoods is the principle behind his Waste Equity Law 7.
Reform of the private commercial carting industry through a zoned system that reduces truck traffic, emissions, and worker deaths, the basis of his Commercial Waste Zone law 8.
Moving freight off trucks and onto rail, water, and micro-mobility vehicles such as e-cargo bikes, and opposing the unregulated proliferation of "last-mile" warehouses, particularly in environmental-justice communities like Red Hook 9.
Policing and public safety
Reynoso's policing positions are informed by his own experience of being stopped and frisked as a young man. He led the Right to Know Act, which requires NYPD officers to obtain consent for searches without probable cause and to provide identification 10. He has been a consistent critic of abusive policing practices and a supporter of accountability measures, while operating within the mainstream Democratic rather than the most expansive "abolish the police" framework.
Immigration
Immigration is central to Reynoso's identity as the son of Dominican immigrants and a representative of heavily immigrant neighborhoods. He has listed abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as one of his stated legislative priorities for Congress 11. He has emphasized his understanding of "the needs of our immigrant neighbors" and positioned immigrant defense as a core reason he is running for federal office 12.
Taxation and the economy
Reynoso has named "taxing the rich" as one of his top legislative priorities for Congress, alongside addressing the housing crisis and abolishing ICE 11. His economic framing centers on working-class and immigrant New Yorkers, consistent with his ACORN organizing roots and his labor-backed coalition.
Puerto Rico
As a candidate to succeed Nydia Velázquez, whose district has deep Puerto Rican political roots, Reynoso has made Puerto Rico policy a central plank of his congressional platform. In May 2026, he released a broad federal platform for the island alongside Velázquez 13. He has framed Puerto Rico as a moral responsibility of Congress, arguing that because Congress holds jurisdiction over the island, every member has an obligation to address its issues 14.
Transportation
Reynoso supports a transportation vision that prioritizes pedestrians, cyclists, and transit over private cars. He has supported the end of parking minimums and criticized illegal parking, including double parking and parking on sidewalks, in parks, and in bike lanes 3. His Comprehensive Plan for Brooklyn emphasized more trees, bike lanes, and less parking 3.
Public health
As borough president, Reynoso has used the office's platform to focus on public health and equitable development, highlighting stark disparities within Brooklyn, including a roughly seven-year life-expectancy gap and a six-figure income gap between affluent and poor neighborhoods 2.
Foreign policy and national issues
As a congressional candidate, Reynoso has aligned with the progressive wing on foreign policy, consistent with the district's politics. He shares the broad anti-Trump, pro-immigrant, pro-Palestinian-rights orientation common to the candidates in the NY-7 race, though he has emphasized that his distinguishing feature is governing experience rather than ideological positioning 15. The district is so heavily progressive that it has been nicknamed the "Commie Corridor" following Mamdani's dominant 2025 primary performance there 16.
How his positions fit together
The throughline across Reynoso's positions is a pragmatic progressivism: genuinely left-wing goals on housing, environmental justice, policing, and immigration, paired with a governing style that emphasizes coalition-building, technical seriousness (notably on housing finance and waste logistics), and incremental delivery over rhetorical maximalism. This has made him a YIMBY-friendly, labor-backed progressive who is nonetheless to the institutional side of the DSA left.
Supporters describe his approach as effective progressivism that actually delivers policy; critics from his left argue he is insufficiently confrontational, while critics from his right have at times viewed specific measures (such as the commercial waste zones) as overreach. Both readings are reflected in the 2026 congressional primary, which has been framed by some observers as a contest between the institutional Working Families Party left and the ascendant DSA left, a framing Reynoso himself disputes 15.