David Segal
David Adam Segal started his political career by getting elected to the Providence, Rhode Island city council at age 22 as a Green Party USA member. He co-founded the group Demand Progress with Aaron Swartz.
Background
David Segal is the son of physicians who met while working at a veterans’ hospital, and is the grandson of Eastern European immigrants. His father’s parents were grocers in Portland, ME; his mother’s mother worked at a Woodward and Lothrop’s store, and his mother’s father worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
David Segal attended Columbia University, where he received his B.A. in mathematics. He was an instructor, teaching-assistant, and tutor at the Wheeler School before joining the City Council 2003. In 2007 he co-founded the Rhode Island Chapter of the good government group FairVote, worked as an analyst for FairVote in 2008 and 2009, and has testified before the United States House and Senate in support of governmental reform. On top of his duties as a state representative, he has spent 2010 working part-time for a consumer rights attorney.
Segal’s writing on government reform, education, and other issues has been published in Providence Journal, New York Times, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Huffington Post, and elsewhere. He is a founder and editor of the Providence Daily Dose, which Rhode Island Monthly deemed the best blog in Rhode Island, and the Phoenix has repeatedly called the best in Providence. He lives in a triple-decker in the Fox Point neighborhood, in Providence.[1]
WFP
Common Defense
Common Defense endorsed David Segal for Congress in 2022.
Left Democrats in Search of Anti-Trump Strategy
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - New York Office March 12 2018·
This weekend, we were honored to be invited to the Congressional Progressive Caucus Strategy Summit in Baltimore, MD. With us came the fist-ever delegation of elected representatives from European left parties, excited to connect with progressive members of the US House, including Barbara Lee, Mark Pocan, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, and Raul Grijalva, as well as with representatives from progressive NGOs and unions. The photo shows our delegation (from left): Sevim Dagdelen from DIE LINKE, David Segal (CPC staff), Albert Scharenberg (RLS–NYC), Eduardo Maura from Podemos, Diane Abbott MP from The Labour Party, Yiannis Bournous from ΣΥ.ΡΙΖ.Α. (Syriza), Alex Main (CEPR), and Ethan Earle (RLS–NYC). Of the people, by the people, for the people!
Reclaim Rhode Island
To pass a budget in Rhode Island, you need a two-thirds vote in both chambers, which means that just a handful of lawmakers can block any given proposal. An effort to organize such a bloc is underway, led by Reclaim Rhode Island and other progressive groups, is already starting to flex its new muscles, threatening to block a budget that includes cuts to funding for schools, health care, cities, or other key services. A press conference with old and new lawmakers is being planned for later this month, said David Segal, a Reclaim Rhode Island member and the co-founder of RI WFP.
“This budget fight is one of the most critical legislative efforts since I first moved to Rhode Island a couple decades ago,” he said. “And we need progressives and other populists in the Assembly, old and new, to come together to wield their procedural power to block a budget that hurts ordinary Rhode Islanders in the middle of this pandemic and economic catastrophe.”
DSA connection
According to 2008 campaign supporter and Democratic Socialists of America member Will Emmons, Segal , “acts as a megaphone for progressive organizations around the state,” helping them accomplish their goals. “I thought working for Dave was a good use of my time because we need folks on the inside of the political system standing up to racist anti-immigrant legislation, fighting for renewable energy and green jobs, advocating for workers’ and union rights, and arguing for a robust public sphere...”[2]
DSA support
In 2010 Rhode Island Young Democratic Socialists/ Democratic Socialists of America member Will Emmons wrote an article "A progressive campaign on Rhode island" for the Boston Democratic Socialists of America newsletter The Yankee Radical (September) on David Segal's Rhode Island Congressional campaign.[3]
- The David Segal campaign is going full steam ahead in the race to succeed Patrick Kennedy as the next Congressman from Rhode Island's First District. Segal, a Green-turned-Democrat former City Councilor and current State Representative, was first considered a long-shot candidate, but has recently shot up in the polls. Organized labor and working people are key parts of his agenda.
- I first got to know Rep. Segal when he invited me to speak at a Rhode Island Statehouse lobbying effort against the State purchase of sweatshop-made apparel. He also provided me a couch when I spoke at Brown University on student-labor solidarity. His work has dealt with the full spectrum of progressive issues, from reforming Rhode Island's backwards probation laws, to fighting for public funding of elections, to bringing labor and environmental groups together in a Green Jobs coalition which could establish New England as a hub for green manufacturing. During this wave of Tea Party insurgency, it’s great to see a left-liberal candidate mobilizing young people and activists for social change.
- He is running against the Providence machine and needs your support. There are opportunities to volunteer remotely from Boston and in Rhode Island as well. Those interested should contact Will Emmons at...
- Will Emmons is a Rhode Island DSA–YDS member active in the Segal campaign.
DSA endorsement
In 2010, David Adam Segal a Democratic Party member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, running for Congress in the state's 1st Congressional District, was included in a list of the mainly Massachusetts candidates endorsed by the Boston Democratic Socialists of America, published in the The Yankee Radical:[4]
Endorsing Cynthia Nixon and Jumaane Williams
The Case for Endorsing Cynthia Nixon and Jumaane Williams (And How To Do It Strategically) was a letter Drafted by: Danya Lagos (CBK/Labor), and circulated among New York Democratic Socialists of America members in July 2018.[1]
CoSigners, as of July 23 2018 were: David Segal.
National Leading From the Inside Out Alum
David Segal, President & Chief Executive Officer, Demand Progress, was a 2015 Rockwood Leadership Institute National Leading From the Inside Out Alum.[5]