Sandro Navarro, district director for State Sen. Jessica Ramos and Hiram Monserrate, a former council member and state senator, have both been removed from the ballot for the upcoming Council District 21 election.
Navarro and Monserrate had joined an inflated field vying to replace the term-limited Francisco Moya in District 21, which includes parts of Corona, East Elmhurst, LeFrak City, and Jackson Heights.
The area, which has undergone significant change and social upheaval in recent years, is one of the most hotly-contested races in the upcoming elections, with six candidates initially vying to replace Moya. That number has now been reduced to four after Navarro and Monserrate were removed from the ballot for different reasons on Monday.
Navarro, who has officially ended his campaign, did not receive enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot after the Board of Elections (BOE) invalidated a significant number of his petition signatures. He ultimately finished 174 valid signatures shy of qualifying for the ballot, according to a report in the Queens Eagle.
In a statement posted on Instagram, Navarro said the BOE had determined that he did not receive enough valid signatures following a “legal challenge” from his opponents.
“While this is not the outcome we hoped for, I am incredibly proud of what we built together,” Navarro said in a statement on Instagram. “This campaign was always bigger than one election. I remain committed to fighting for our community and getting us the resources we deserve.”
Monserrate, on the other hand, was removed from the ballot on Monday after the BOE ruled in favor of a petition from his opponents Yanna Henriquez and Shanel Thomas-Henry arguing that his petitions were invalid because of a City Council law preventing candidates from running if they had certain felony convictions.
Monserrate, who was expelled from the state senate after being convicted of misdemeanor assault, later served two years in prison on corruption charges.
In 2021, the City Council passed a law disqualifying people from holding elected positions in the city if they had received certain felony convictions. The law was specifically aimed at Monserrate, who was attempted to mount several political comebacks through campaigns for the council and the state assembly since completing his two-year sentence.
Monserrate, however, secured a major win in 2023 when Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Machelle Sweeting ruled that the law did not apply to Monserrate because it was not written in a way that specifically applied to previous convictions that took place before the law was passed.
However, the BOE ruled Monday in favor of Shanel-Thomas and Henriquez, removing Monserrate from the ballot.
Monserrate said in a statement that he expected the ruling, but expected the law preventing him from running to be thrown out.
“Today’s ruling by the Board was expected,” Monserrate said in a statement on Monday. “We will be in Court expecting a just adjudication that protects the civil and voting rights of all the citizens of this great state. We look forward to a robust campaign for the City Council.”
Monserrate’s supporters have launched an appeal against a February court decision upholding the Council’s right to pass a law barring people from holding elected positions if they have been convicted of felony offenses. His supporters have argued that the law should be struck from the books and are expecting a decision in mid-May, according to the Queens Eagle. Monserrate has also brought a case to validate his petitions.
If Monserrate remains off the ballot, the congested field for District 21 will narrow considerably, leaving Thomas-Henry and Henriquez to compete against David Aiken and Adrienne Adams’ staffer Erycka Montoya.
Montoya, the associate deputy director of Adams’s Intergovernmental Affairs Division; Henriquez, a district leader for the Queens County Democratic Party; Thomas-Henry, a CB3 member and public information liaison for the $8 billion LaGuardia Redevelopment Program; and Aiken, who unsuccessfully challenged Moya in the 2021 primary, will battle it out in June’s Democratic primary.
