Demond Meeks was a health care union organizer when he won the Assembly seat David Gantt had held for 37 years, beating the Democratic Party’s chosen candidate in a 2020 primary. He has since beaten two more primary challengers, including the county party’s pick in 2024, and now chairs the Assembly’s Office of State-Federal Relations.
So who is Demond Meeks, what has he passed, and why has his own county party twice backed someone else? The record runs through a crime victims law, a deed theft bill stalled in the Senate, a progressive tax plan that has never reached the floor, and a three-way race on Nov. 3.
Quick Facts
- Party
- Democratic (also on the Working Families line)
- Hometown
- Rochester, N.Y.
- Date of Birth
- Not listed in official biographies reviewed
- Current Position
- New York State Assembly, 137th District
- Background
- Former 1199SEIU health care union organizer; community and youth mentor
- In Office Since
- November 2020
EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY
Meeks was born and raised in Rochester, according to his Assembly biography. He earned an associate degree from Monroe Community College and a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Brockport, and later took labor relations training through Cornell University. PagPol could not confirm his date of birth in an official source.
He and his wife, Cratrina, raised their children in Rochester’s 19th Ward, and the family attends Aenon Missionary Baptist Church, according to his campaign site. He was initiated into the Omega Psi Phi fraternity in 2010 and has mentored students at School No. 4 and at the Boys & Girls Club of Rochester.
AN ORGANIZER BEFORE OFFICE, 2010 TO 2019
In November 2010 Meeks became an administrative organizer for 1199SEIU, the health care workers union, representing nearly 800 workers and bargaining their contracts, according to his campaign site. He was also active in the Rochester chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and on the coordinating committee of the Poor People’s Campaign.
In 2013 he joined the Parent Leadership Training Institute’s civic design team. He describes himself as “a servant leader,” and his Assembly biography carries the motto “the power of the people is stronger than the people in power.” His campaign site faults lawmakers for “seeing bills passed to the benefit of New York City” instead of upstate.
WINNING GANTT'S SEAT, 2020
When Gantt announced in 2020 that he would not run again, he and the county Democratic Party backed County Legislator Ernest Flagler-Mitchell. Meeks won the June primary with 4,666 votes, or 44.1 percent, to Flagler-Mitchell’s 3,516 and Ann Lewis’s 2,045, according to Ballotpedia. Absentee ballots decided the race.
Gantt died on July 1, 2020. Meeks raised $40,400 in that race to Flagler-Mitchell’s $28,700, according to WXXI. No Republican ran in November, and he won with 33,952 votes. “We made this happen by way of family, community, and more family,” he said. He was sworn in early, on Nov. 12, because the seat was vacant.
2024 winning margins, Monroe County's contested Assembly races
MeeksOther Monroe County Assembly Democrats
Margin in percentage points over the runner-up in the November 2024 general election. Meeks ran unopposed in 2020 and won with 67.9 percent in 2022 and 71.6 percent in 2024. Source: Monroe County Board of Elections certified results.
FIRST TERM, 2021 TO 2022
In January 2021 Meeks joined Sen. Robert Jackson to launch the Invest In Our New York Act, a package of tax increases on the wealthy, according to an Assembly release. His version of a higher top income tax rate has been refiled every term since, now as A1281, and has never left the Ways and Means Committee.
In May 2022 he introduced a bill requiring drunk drivers who kill a parent to pay child support, now A3641. It too remains in committee. That November he beat Republican Marcus Williams, who ran on rolling back bail and parole changes, 16,900 to 7,990, or 67.9 percent. “We’re just really getting started,” Meeks said, according to WXXI.
SECOND TERM, 2023 TO 2024
Meeks’s main law came in 2023. His Fair Access to Victim Compensation Act, A2105A, lets crime victims get state aid without first reporting to police and extends the filing window. Sen. Zellnor Myrie carried it in the Senate, where it passed 60 to 0. It passed the Assembly 121 to 16 and became Chapter 695 of 2023, according to the Senate bill page.
Meeks said the bill would “remove the unjust barriers victims and survivors of crime face,” according to the governor’s office. The law took effect in January 2026, according to the Amsterdam News. The advocacy group Common Justice campaigned for it. His A2853B, letting life insurers offer wellness programs, passed 144 to 0 and became Chapter 768 of 2023.
In 2024 the Monroe County Democratic Committee designated City Councilmember Willie Lightfoot over Meeks, the sitting incumbent. Meeks won the June primary 3,467 to 1,765, or 66.2 percent, according to Ballotpedia. That November he beat Williams again, 26,691 to 10,573, or 71.6 percent, according to the Board of Elections.
The Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge over the Genesee River, at the edge of downtown Rochester in the 137th District. (Photo: Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
THIRD TERM, 2025 TO 2026
In 2025 Meeks co-sponsored Assemblyman Harry Bronson’s bill adding $125 million to the Rochester schools rebuilding program, which became Chapter 527 of 2025. In February 2026 Mercedes Vazquez Simmons, vice president of the County Legislature, announced a primary challenge. About two weeks later Meeks launched his reelection bid. “As we look toward the future, our fight continues,” he said, according to Spectrum News.
On May 29, 2026, his Deed Protection Act, A9554B, passed the Assembly 96 to 32. It would bar lenders from foreclosing on mortgages they know rest on stolen or forged deeds. Republican Josh Jensen co-sponsored it, but it stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to the Senate bill record. PagPol could not find who opposed it or why.
On June 23, 2026, Meeks beat Vazquez Simmons 4,801 to 1,100, or 81.4 percent, in certified results, according to the Board of Elections. She had already filed petitions for an independent line, the Mercedes Simmons Cares party, and remains on the November ballot.
A Caribbean grocery store in Rochester’s 19th Ward, the neighborhood where Meeks and his wife raised their children. (Photo: EastOfWest, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
HIS VOTING RECORD
Meeks votes with the Assembly’s Democratic majority on major bills. In May 2023 he voted for the budget bill that changed bail rules, which passed 91 to 57. That June he co-sponsored and voted for the Clean Slate Act, which seals old criminal records and passed 82 to 65, according to the Assembly vote record. It became Chapter 631 of 2023.
In April 2024 he voted for the budget bill that enacted Good Cause Eviction protections, which passed 93 to 53. In May 2025 he voted for the budget bill changing evidence rules in criminal cases, which passed 112 to 37. The New York League of Conservation Voters says he has held a 100 percent score throughout his time in office, according to the NYLCV.
THE DISTRICT AND THE PARTY MATH
The 137th District covers downtown Rochester, the city’s northeast and west sides, including the 19th Ward, and the town of Gates. In February 2026 it had 38,988 Democrats, 9,361 Republicans, and 20,457 voters with no party out of 70,129, according to the county Board of Elections enrollment figures. Democrats outnumber Republicans more than four to one.
In Albany, Democrats hold 101 of the Assembly’s 150 seats, a two-thirds supermajority, along with the Senate and the governor’s office, according to Ballotpedia. Gantt held the seat from 1983 to 2020, and Meeks has called himself only the second Black person to hold it. His real contests are Democratic primaries, not general elections.
COMMITTEES AND LEADERSHIP
Meeks chairs the Assembly’s Office of State-Federal Relations, according to his committee page. He also sits on six standing committees, Children and Families, Cities, Correction, Health, Housing, and Insurance, and he belongs to the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus.
In 2024 he chaired a subcommittee on insurer investments and market practices in underserved areas, according to the Rochester Beacon. He prime-sponsored 36 bills and co-sponsored 387 in the 2025 and 2026 session, according to Assembly data in PagPol’s Data Spine, fewer prime bills than Rochester colleagues Bronson, with 144, or Jen Lunsford, with 62.
Bills introduced as prime sponsor, 2025-26 session, Monroe County Assembly members
MeeksDemocratsRepublicans
Bills each member introduced as prime sponsor in the 2025 and 2026 session. Counts show bills introduced, not bills passed. Source: New York State Assembly sponsor data, compiled in PagPol’s Data Spine.
WHY HE RAN AND WHAT HE BELIEVES
Meeks says his goal is “to improve the standard and quality of living for all Rochesterians.” He frames crime as a problem of poverty. “I truly believe that we can’t police our way out of this,” he told Spectrum News in 2024. “We have to be looking at the perpetrator of the crime as well as the victim of the crime,” he told WXXI.
He backs the 2019 bail law, Good Cause Eviction, ending mandatory minimum sentences, and higher taxes on top earners. “Those who make $25 million-plus a year have more disposable income than everyday working people,” he told WXXI. He has also proposed a universal basic income pilot and upstate pay parity for home care workers.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
PagPol could not retrieve Meeks’s 2026 totals from the state Board of Elections, but state public matching fund records show the race’s money. Through September 2026, Vazquez Simmons had received about $106,300 in public funds, Meeks about $68,000, and Republican Dave Ferris about $54,900, according to PagPol’s tally of the state’s matching funds distributions.
In early 2024, Meeks reported raising $31,300 to Lightfoot’s $9,000, with unions supplying about 40 percent of his money, according to the Rochester Beacon. Donors included Airbnb, the Avangrid PAC, the Gates firefighters union, and the campaigns of Bronson, Assemblywoman Sarah Clark, and Mayor Malik Evans.
2026 public matching funds received by 137th District candidates
MeeksVazquez Simmons (primary, then independent line)Republican
Public matching funds paid to each 137th District candidate through September 2026, combining primary and general election distributions. Source: New York State Public Campaign Finance Board, as tallied by PagPol.
CONTROVERSIES AND CRITICISM
Republicans have attacked laws he backs. When Clean Slate was signed in November 2023, Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt said it lets “criminals convicted of some of the most violent offenses” have records sealed, according to WSKG. Republican Sen. Dean Murray added, “We already have a system that allows for those second chances.”
His sharpest critics have been fellow Democrats. In 2024 Lightfoot said of Albany’s delegation, “I have yet to see a plan orchestrated by the Assembly specifically toward my community that looks like me. Nothing,” according to the Rochester Beacon. On bail he told Spectrum News, “I’ve signed a consortium for common sense laws concerning the bail reform,” then added of Meeks, “He has not.”
Meeks answered that he had delivered funding, including “$8.1 million for the Baden Street Settlement,” according to WROC. In 2026 Vazquez Simmons argued, “we don’t have that level of advocacy at the state level, so I’m hoping to change that,” according to WHEC. PagPol found no ethics complaints, lawsuits, or audits involving Meeks or his office.
Meeks speaking at a housing press conference at the State Capitol in Albany in January 2023. (Photo: NY Senate Photo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
CLAIMS VERSUS THE RECORD
Meeks campaigns on workers, fair wages, and justice reform. His enacted record is narrower: two prime-sponsored laws, both in 2023, the victim compensation law and the insurance wellness law. His tax, minimum sentencing, drug decriminalization, and home care pay bills remain in committee, and his deed theft bill passed only the Assembly.
His office credits him with state money for Rochester, including $10 million for downtown revitalization and more than $1 million for the Lincoln Branch Library. Those are budget items PagPol could not independently verify. For another Assembly member’s record, see PagPol’s profile of Carrie Woerner.
STATE COMPTROLLER AUDITS IN THE DISTRICT
A January 2020 comptroller budget review projected a Rochester City School District deficit of about $31.6 million even after layoffs. A June 2024 fire district audit found the Gates Fire District raised its tax levy more than $7.5 million, or 80 percent, from 2020 to 2024 with no written long-term financial plan.
A December 2025 follow-up found the fire district had carried out all eight recommendations. The comptroller’s fiscal stress score for the City of Rochester rose from 6.3 in 2023 to 34.6 in 2025, still below the threshold for a designation, according to FingerLakes1.
LOOKING AHEAD
On Nov. 3, 2026, Meeks faces Ferris, a Gates Republican leader and Army veteran who owns an auto repair shop, and Vazquez Simmons on her independent line. For more, visit PagPol’s Monroe County page or subscribe to the Monroe County newsletter.
