Danny O’Donnell on retirement: ‘I don’t think people should have these jobs for life.’

After over 20 years in the Assembly, Daniel O’Donnell will retire at the end of 2024, with Democrat Micah Lasher taking over his seat. O’Donnell was the first out gay man to serve in the Assembly after he was elected in 2002 to represent part of Manhattan.

After serving as a public defender with The Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn and opening a public interest law firm, O’Donnell ran for the Assembly to replace retiring Assembly Member Edward Sullivan. During his tenure, he sponsored and passed the the Dignity for All Students Act, which protects students against harassment and discrimination, in 2009, and the Marriage Equality Act, which legalized same-sex marriage in New York, in 2011.

City & State spoke with O’Donnell on his tenure in the Assembly and what he hopes to do in the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How have you changed as a legislator and as a person throughout your time in office?

Well, I’ve aged. And the things that happen as you get older have happened to me, and I have different health struggles now than I did 42 years ago. The world has very much changed, I can tell you that. And I tried my hardest to do the best that I could to represent the people who elected me and people have been extraordinarily lovely to me. People stop me (on) the street who I don’t know and thank me, which hasn’t really happened a lot in my career, but so it’s been lovely, and it’s time for me to go. One of the things I will say, I don’t think people should have these jobs for life, and I don’t think people should do them until they die. I think it’s good for the institution. I think it’s good for the neighborhood. So I don’t think people should do these jobs forever and not to sit and judge anybody else, but 22 is enough for me.

Some of your successes in the Assembly have been writing the Dignity for All Students Act and Marriage Equality Act. What makes advocating for the LGBTQ+ community necessary and important to your work?

Well, I was the first openly gay man to be elected to the state Assembly, which when I was running, people would laugh at me, saying, “That can’t be true.” But it was true and it was quite a struggle. Homophobia exists at all levels of our society, some of it’s cultural, some of it’s religious, but there are gay people in our society and they need to be treated equally with dignity and respect. I went through some very strange interactions. I had a guy once say to me once, “I don’t know any gay people” in 2004 and I thought, “Well, do you ever leave your house. … Do you ever do anything?” So people were much less open about that. This is before “Will and Grace” and a variety of things that changed that a bit, and so we have both experienced greater acceptance and greater access, like marriage equality was a very big step and I spent five years doing it, but I was very proud that I got to do that. I therefore married my husband after all those years. But in some of the fights, the same things rise up, for example, the Dignity for All Students Act, which was the state’s anti-bullying law, which the Senate would not take up for many, many years. And I was told point blank, if I removed the trans language from the bill they would pass it tomorrow. The way it works in Albany is, if your name is the first name on the bill, you control it. They can’t change a comma without your permission. So I refuse to change the bill to not include trans people. And this year, we just went through this election where trans people and their rights and their access to bathrooms are front and center, and a lot of times, I passed a bill in New York that requires that single stall bathrooms were gender-neutral, and that was a result of stuff that was happening down South, where people were getting arrested for being in the wrong bathroom. So if the door could lock and you were by yourself, I didn’t understand why that should matter one way or the other, so that was a big step forward in our state. But there are other versions that came along before that the trans community didn’t want. So if there was a bill, for example, that would have given access to bathrooms and state buildings, and many trans people don’t have identification which matches their appearance, which means they can’t get into a state building. So the real issue was in a hotel or restaurant or someplace else. So those battles continue, there’s a lot of disinformation and misinformation, and although not a member of the trans community, I am a member of the larger LGBT community, and we need people of our community to speak for ourselves.

What do you make of your departure during a tumultuous time in New York City politics?

It only got more tumultuous (since) I announced I was leaving. They weren’t connected, but it’s gotten pretty tumultuous. There always have been people who have used their political power to employ their friends or to get freebies or to get special treatment. I’m never one of those people, so it’s not news to me, but this last couple of years have been pretty egregious in that front and I do blame a lot on the former president who seemed to only get the job so he could do those very things. New York City is a very big place, very diverse place, and you need to have somebody running it who wants to run it, and not just wants to go to the parties and events, and so that’s part of the problem. It’s such an overwhelming job that if you’re not really committed to doing the job, it will crush you. And I talked to a few people of my former colleagues, if you know how many times I was offered a trip to Turkey, and I turned them all down. I read the itinerary, and this imposter said $700 I’m like, “Ph, no, this is not a $700 trip, this is a $3,000 trip,” and I’m not taking that trip and just paying $700. So I understand that oftentimes foreign governments want to expose people in positions of power to what their culture is, but there’s a fine line, and it seems to me that line had been crossed by (the) current mayor.

How do you feel about your successor, Micah Lasher?

I’ve known him since he was a teenager. (He) grew up on the West Side, not far from my office. I know his mother. His mother is the best person I know in the world. She’s fabulous. And I wish him well, he’s incredibly smart, which is helpful. But the problem is, it’s not just about being smart, it’s about how you interact with others, and so he’s had a lot of access to power by working for very powerful people. Now you’re not in that environment. You’re in the environment of one of 150 and you have to figure out how to navigate the agendas of those 150 people. So I wish him well. I think he’ll be all right.

How will you continue to support your constituents after your Assembly tenure?

Well, people are very funny. They come up to me and say, “Are you moving?” Like no, I’ve lived here since 1990, I’m not moving. So I don’t have a job yet lined up. I’m currently talking about getting a job because I really can’t afford to not have a job, but I could use a little rest, and so I’m not leaving. I will still be here but I will try very hard not to get in the way of Micah doing it his way. I did it different than my predecessor and he gets to do it different than me, and so I wish him well, and I’ll be around. I don’t know that I’ll be weighing in, endorsing people and things like that, but I’m not going anywhere.

What does your future look like, and do you plan on running for office again?

Never, ever, again. I am done like a hard-boiled egg – cook me (and) I’m still a hard-boiled egg. Running for office has become increasingly difficult to do, and it’s an increasingly high toll on your life. And it was the dream of my life to be a legislator. So my dream came true. But no, I have no intentions of running for office ever again. They gave me a job, I turned it down because I don’t want to do that to myself or to my husband. So I don’t know what the future holds. Hopefully I’ll be thinner and hopefully I’ll get some sleep and hopefully the world will continue on a better path than it has been the last month.