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Margaret S. Chin (born May 26, 1953) is a Chinese American politician who served as a council member for the 1st district of the New York City Council from 2010 to 2021. A Democrat, she and Queens Council member Peter Koo comprised the Asian American delegation of the city council.
Her district included all or parts of Battery Park City, Chinatown, Civic Center, East Village, Ellis Island, Financial District, Governors Island, Greenwich Village, Liberty Island, Little Italy, Lower East Side, NoHo, Nolita, SoHo, Tribeca, and the West Village.
Chin grew up in Chinatown in New York City and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and the City College of New York with a degree in education. She worked for 14 years at LaGuardia Community College's Division of Adult and Continuing Education.
She has been a member of several public service groups and organizations. In 1974, she was a founding member of Asian Americans for Equality, a group dedicated to "empowering Asian Americans and others in need", and she served as the board's president from 1982 to 1986. She was the chairperson of the New York Immigration Coalition, a policy and advocacy organization which works on issues concerning immigrants and refugees. She was a board member of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, an affordable housing non-profit organization. Chin was also a founding member of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation, a group that was formed in 2006 to "rebuild Chinatown following 9/11, and to preserve the neighborhood's unique culture while ensuring its vitality in the future."
In local and state politics, Chin was a member of Manhattan Community Board 1 and Manhattan Community Board 3, and was elected to the New York State Democratic Committee for two terms from 1986 to 1990.
Chin has stated that her ethnicity helped her win the district that includes Chinatown. In her words, many new immigrants and seniors do not speak English, and appreciated that they could speak to her directly and "talk to a City Council member without having to go through an interpreter."
In a primary with low voter turnout, she won the Democratic nomination with 39% of the vote, ousting two-term incumbent Alan Gerson. Chin earned 4,541 votes to Gerson's 3,520; the other three candidates, PJ Kim, Pete Gleason, and Arthur Gregory won 1,927 votes, 1,293 votes, and 235 votes, respectively. Campaigning on the issues of affordable housing, improving infrastructure, immigration reform, and better services for senior citizens, Chin won the general election held on November 3, 2009, against Republican candidate Irene Horvath in a landslide, carrying 86% of the vote.
In 2013, Chin ran for reelection. She received an endorsement from the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York prior to that year's September Democratic Party primary and received funding from REBNY for mailings. She was challenged in the primary by Democrat Jenifer Rajkumar, a Lower Manhattan District Leader, in a widely publicized race. Chin won with 58.5% of the vote.
The councilwoman retained the right to run a third term due to legislation passed in 2008, despite New Yorkers subsequently voting against the concept in 2010. In 2017, Chin ran for re-election and won her primary with 46% of the vote against her main challenger, Christopher Marte, a newcomer who received 37%. Marte ran against her again in the general election on the Independence party line, and Chin won the general election with 49.9% of the vote.
| + New York City Council District 1: results 1991-2017 !Year ! !Democratic !Votes !Pct ! !Republican !Votes !Pct ! !3rd party !Party !Votes !Pct ! !3rd party !Party !Votes !Pct | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1991 | Kathryn Freed | 5,717 | 51% | Fred Teng | 2,630 | 23% | Margaret Chin | Liberal | 2,853 | 25% | ||||||||
| 2001 | Alan Gerson | 12,209 | 47% | Jordan Kaufman | 3,349 | 13% | Margaret Chin | Liberal | 4,178 | 16% | ||||||||
| 2009 | Margaret Chin | 18,750 | 86% | Irene Horvath | 3,093 | 14% | ||||||||||||
| 2013 | Margaret Chin | 16,976 | 99% | |||||||||||||||
| 2017 | Margaret Chin | 11,468 | 49.8% | Bryan Jung | 2,014 | 8.75% | Aaron Foldenauer | Liberal | 1,103 | 4.40% | Christopher Marte | Independence | 8,502 | 36.92% |
On 8 November 2021, during the lame-duck period of her final term on the city council, Chin introduced a bill specifically targeting over 1600 housing units in her district designated as JLWQA (joint living-work quarters for artists) for fines and flip-taxes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit. The legislation was introduced one day before a vote on rezoning the SoHo and NoHo neighborhoods in her district and was opposed by her elected successor, Christopher Marte. Chin nevertheless tabled and voted for the bill, triggering years of legal action after her retirement.
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