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Affordable housing, transportation and childcare are priorities held by three Onondaga County political activists turned local political candidates. When the three connected through the Syracuse Democratic Socialists of America, they collaborated to form a new ticket — the “Affordability Slate.”

As these issues continue to shape life in the city of Syracuse, legislature candidates Jo Bennett and Tammy Honeywell along with state assembly candidate Maurice Brown plan to run on a joint campaign focused on lifting the financial burden of Syracuse residents.

The candidates launched the joint campaign, titled the “Affordability Slate” on Feb. 23. Brown, Bennett and Honeywell are currently running for a seat on the New York State Assembly and Onondaga County Legislator for the 15th and 8th districts, respectively.

The slate is built upon three pillars — safe and affordable housing, universal childcare and free transportation.

“They’re the issues that come up when I talk to people. They’re the issues that come up in emails and conversations,” Brown, Onondaga County’s current 16th district legislator, said. “Those are issues that we’ve not done a good job of addressing as local government, whether it’s the city, county or state.”

Because the Syracuse DSA endorsed each candidate during their past campaigns for local offices, the candidates said they were all familiar with each other. Bennett, Honeywell and Brown also worked together through political activism and collaboration within Syracuse DSA outside of their campaigns.

Bennett has canvassed for both Brown and Honeywell in their respective 2023 and 2025 campaigns.

Honeywell said running separate campaigns can be isolating, and the three wanted to work together to use shared resources and support.

“When we have shared principles, shared values, shared platform, it makes it easier to run together,” Honeywell said. “We can utilize our resources through DSA and the people that have known us for years, who have seen us organize in the community to come together to try to move forward all three of our campaigns.”

Mae Carden, a seven-year member of Syracuse DSA, said Brown, Bennett and Honeywell have championed the ideals of DSA for years. Carden said DSA sees two major crises today — a lack of affordability and “the rise of fascism” — both of which the slate’s candidates are working to combat.

“Fascists want us to turn on our neighbors, and we want to create a new politics that is: ‘No I love my neighbor, and we have more in common than I thought, which is that our rent is too high and our child care bills are unaffordable,’” Carden said.

Brown said he is running for the state assembly because many county issues are decided and funded at the state level. He said he ran for an assembly seat six years ago and lost to William Magnarelli, who spent almost 30 years serving the 129th District of New York.

Throughout his time as a local politician, Brown said he’s brought up issues such as the Community Grid Vision Plan and the need for safer roads, including protected bike lanes and more appropriate speed limits. However, Brown said he has not seen movement on these topics since his initial campaign.

Brown said he deviates from the other members of the slate when it comes to public transportation. He said he will be prioritizing improving availability, rather than cost. Brown spoke to Centro, Syracuse’s contracted bus company, and supports the Bus Rapid Transit model — a bus system created by the Federal Transit Administration that works to make service more efficient.

Bennett, running for Brown’s current position as Onondaga County legislature for the 15th district, received his endorsement.

“There was a short list of people that I spoke to when I was exploring my assembly run, and Jo was at the top of it,” Brown said. “I’m glad that ultimately they did decide to run, because our community needs a champion representing the 15th district, and now we’re going to get one.”

Growing up in Syracuse and working as a public school teacher in the city’s school district for 10 years, Bennett said they’ve seen how issues such as safe and affordable housing and lack of transportation affect residents first hand.

Bennett said their students struggle to attend school due to lack of transportation, or having to watch their siblings, while also living in unsafe housing or being homeless.

“I see it every day as a teacher, I see my students struggling with housing. One in 10 of them are homeless, and I think it’s actually pushing closer to two in 10 right now,” Bennett said. “They’re dealing with unsafe conditions that are similar to what I dealt with but even worse.”

Having run in 2021 against his same opponent Bill Kinne, this won’t be Bennett’s first bid for county legislature. When they heard Brown was running for state assembly, Bennett said they knew Syracuse needed a “fighter,” so they stepped up.

Honeywell ran for Onondaga County Legislator for the 8th district in 2025 and lost to Chad Ryan. She said she wanted to run for government before, but a win would have meant resigning from her Onondaga County job at the Department of Social Services, which she said she was unable to do at the time.

“The three of us have always been focused on affordability and community needs over these big corporate projects,” Honeywell said. “There was a conversation about running together and how important it was, because if Mo was going to be running at the state level, we were going to need to work with him as county legislators to implement our platform.”

Ryan criticized the slate’s practicality. While he said he isn’t opposed to any of the slate’s pillars, he questioned how feasible they are to achieve.

“They’re very hot button issues. They are front and center in everybody’s mind,” Ryan said. “But the devil is in the details.”

Brown is running for a state level position while Honeywell and Bennett remain local, which Ryan said “incredibly different” scopes of work. He cited universal healthcare as an example, explaining that county legislators have no jurisdiction over that because “it’s a state and federal thing.”

If elected, the trio plans to enact tangible changes to Syracuse right away, Bennett said. Brown plans to take on National Grid bills, combatting potential price gouging, while Honeywell will look to increase collaboration between county and state level legislators.

“We might have to focus on one thing at a time and kind of see where it lands us,” Bennett said. “But I’m hoping that (citizens will) see all these changes, and they’ll be able to afford just living.”
The Democratic primary will be held June 23 and early voting begins June 13.

Published on March 19, 2026 at 1:08 am