Biography
Micah Lasher has spent his life on the West Side and his career in public service, fighting for a more just, fair, and equitable New York.
Prior to his election to the State Assembly in 2024, Micah served at all three levels of government, as Director of Policy for the State of New York, Chief of Staff to the New York State Attorney General, Director of State Legislative Affairs for the City of New York, and as an aide to Congressman Jerry Nadler.
Micah played a leading role in writing sweeping gun safety laws immediately after the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, and helped enact comprehensive legislation to protect abortion providers and patients in the wake of the Supreme Court's horrendous Dobbs decision. He was part of the effort to make New York one of the first states in the nation to index the minimum wage to rapidly rising inflation, helped make new buildings statewide all-electric, and was one of the architects of a $1 billion plan to reverse decades of State disinvestment in mental health care. And Micah helped craft a housing plan that The New York Times called the "first serious attempt by a New York governor since the 1960s" to tackle racist, exclusionary zoning and build hundreds of thousands of units of housing.
With a deeply felt sense of obligation to his community, Micah has been involved in a range of important causes, both locally and nationally. He served on the Board of the Riverside Park Conservancy for ten years, and as Chair from 2019 to 2024. During that time, the Conservancy tripled its capacity to make park improvements, expanded the North Park Initiative to better address longstanding inequity in funding and services for a park that runs north to the George Washington Bridge, and successfully advocated for more than $400 million in City support to fund infrastructure projects, including the first restoration of the Soldiers & Sailors Monument in sixty years. Micah also served on the board of Everytown, the national gun safety organization, and for fifteen years on the board - ultimately as Vice Chair - of the Community Service Society, New York's leading anti-poverty organization.
Micah and his wife, Elizabeth, live on the Upper West Side-ten blocks from where he grew up-with their three children. They are members of Congregation Rodeph Sholom and a proud public school, little league, and chess family.
State representatives write and vote on state laws and the state budget. Each represents a district in the legislature's lower chamber, which is called the House, the Assembly, or the House of Delegates depending on the state. Most serve two-year terms.