Famed Civil Rights Attorney Michael Sussman is running for Orange County Executive. In a statement on Saturday, April 19, 2025, Mr. Sussman shared;
“I am running for Orange County Executive because 60 years of one-party rule is too much. We need new ideas and new approaches to many issues. Our county has a rich legacy for agriculture and open space. But the current administration has never met a warehouse it did not support. Our county has cities that need substantial investment and young people who need to be able to afford housing and to find jobs here. Others need job training to become the next generation of carpenters, plumbers, and craftspeople. During the last twelve years, the incumbent has developed no program to address these issues. And, of course, he is not prepared to stand up to the national madness which will deeply affect our residents, whether veterans, children who need Head Start or Early Intervention Services, or our veterans.
I believe I have the capacity, imagination, and experience to make things happen. But in politics, that is not enough. The “viability” of my candidacy will not be measured by my accomplishments as a lawyer or my contributions otherwise, or my vision for this county. It will be measured by how much money I raise between now and July 1. In the next three months, if I have not raised $300,000, local pundits and potential supporters will leave me for dead, whether that is fair or not.”
In Westchester, many may remember Mr Sussman when he was an Assistant General Counsel at the NAACP national office in New York City. It was then that Sussman began work on the case, which had been filed by a local chapter of the NAACP in 1980. The case accused the city of Yonkers — including city officials, lawyers, and judges — of being discriminatory and engaging in housing segregation, which caused school segregation. To diminish said segregation, the city and school board would have to work together to reorganize the school system and create housing opportunities for low-income people that were not in “ghettoized areas,” as Sussman put it.
Believing the Reagan administration’s stance on civil rights made it unreliable in defense, the national office of the NAACP saw an opportunity to become involved and secure a victory. Still, it was 2007 before a ruling in the case, with Judge Leonard B. Sand ruling in favor of the NAACP and ordering Yonkers to build 200 public housing units and allow 600 houses to go to low-income families in the majority middle-class and white east side of town.
Sussman’s civil rights career unfolded alongside that case, with some cases taken on behalf of friends but most dedicated to advancing certain causes, he says. He has represented a Pace University student who was shot by police in 2010 — although the Justice Department decided not to charges against the officer involved — and won $6 million for the family, and won a $45 million settlement against the state for Black and Hispanic workers in a discrimination case, for example.
Sussman now lives in Orange County, where his law firm, Sussman and Associates, is based in the town of Goshen. While he’s mainly worked in Washington, Yonkers, and Orange County, Sussman has also opened “empowerment centers” designed to help underprivileged people in Liberty, Monticello, and Port Jervis.
The Orange County Democratic Committee (OCDC), the county’s Democratic leaders, voted unanimously to select civil rights lawyer Michael Sussman as their nominee for County Executive, at the convention held on Sunday, February 23, at the Chester Senior Center.
“Our Democratic Party in Orange County insists on better, expects more, and is ready to redefine county government with a fresh and dynamic approach. This historic slate (also consisting of Chief Assistant District Attorney Alan Joseph as candidate for District Attorney and nineteen nominees from districts across the county were endorsed as County Legislative candidates) is proof that when neighbors, working families, and community leaders unite around real ideas, we become a force that cannot be ignored. We’re rolling up our sleeves in every corner of Orange County – and we’re just getting started,” said Orange County Democratic Party Chair Zak Constantine.
For more information on Michael Sussman’s campaign click here.
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