“I am so appalled and so angry at even the possibility,” said Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas, a Democrat who represents a neighboring district in Queens and who sponsored a package of anti-sexual harassment laws last year. “We elected so many young progressive women to fight for us. The last thing we need is to take a huge step backward.”

NOW NY President, Sonia Ossorio, said “Every single night of the week there are women who will be targeted for rape because they are highly inebriated and vulnerable to sexual assault. Drinking to excess is not an invitation to be raped. But the way some of our laws are written, you’d think it was. That is going to change.”

Melanie D’Arrigo is a health care advocate from L.I. who briefly lived in Long Island City and she is running a progressive grassroots campaign to unseat incumbent politician U.S Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D-L.I., Little Neck) from New York’s 3rd District.