I am writing to encourage you to appoint someone other than Assemblymember John McDonald to be the next Assembly Majority Leader.

Retiring Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes is deeply committed to parents and individuals making their own medical and vaccine decisions without interference from the State. She is a highly respected and valued leader in protecting our fundamental human rights.  We are deeply grateful for her leadership, and she will be sorely missed.

John McDonald, however, has voted for every bill in memory that would undermine New Yorkers' ability to make medical decisions for themselves and their minor children while financially rewarding drug companies. He has undermined medical privacy, parental rights, and religious liberties. 

These policies have pushed New York to the authoritarian extreme among the states, and have caused tens of thousands of New York families to flee to any of the vast majority of states that still respect fundamental human rights.

McDonald is the author of the current A765, which would end the need to obtain the consent of a person before their vaccine records are entered into the state database system. Vaccine databases are enforcement tools primarily used to compel compliance with mandates, which is exactly what the database was used for during COVID. 

This session he voted to give the Governor sweeping new powers to add vaccines to the New York recommended schedule, including vaccines that are experimental or not licensed by the Food and Drug Administration.

McDonald also voted to repeal the religious exemption from vaccine mandates to attend school, which made New York one of only 5 states without a religious or conscience exemption.

This is a record of division, exclusion and discrimination imposed to benefit narrow financial interests. New York needs a Majority Leader for all New Yorkers, such as Crystal People-Stokes, and John McDonald is not that person.