Reema Rasool

REEMA RASOOL

DEMOCRAT

BACKGROUND: Rasool, 43, of Jericho, is a small-business owner and self-described women’s rights activist. She is founder of Luxe Consulting Group, a business focused on attracting foreign investors to infrastructure projects in the United States. She also founded a support group to unite female entrepreneurs of South Asian descent. She ran unsuccessfully for Oyster Bay Town Board in November. She received a bachelor of arts degree in creative writing and a master's degree in creative writing from New York University. A lifelong New Yorker, born to immigrant parents from India, she is a mother to two teenage boys.

ISSUES: Rasool has said she is running because she is “sick and tired of the reality show-styled political rhetoric that has now become normalized” in Washington, D.C. She supports codifying federal abortion protections previously established under Roe v. Wade into law, and said she would fight to ensure preservation of access to birth control. “Ensuring that women have access to reproductive health care and birth control is not a radical idea,” Rasool said. She is a supporter of the Green New Deal, a package of legislative proposals favored by progressive Democrats that is aimed at tackling climate change. Rasool supports adoption of a federal ban on assault weapons and universal background checks on all gun purchases. She opposes stock trading by members of Congress, saying lawmakers who draw salaries from taxpayers have access to privileged information they can “manipulate” to their advantage. Rasool is a proponent of legislation to increase access to affordable child care, saying “caring for our children should not break the bank.” She has argued the federal government “must declare a state of emergency for our small businesses that need more relief to rebuild from COVID-19.”