Know Your Candidates: Nicole Malliotakis
Nicole Malliotakis, who is running for her fifth term in the state Assembly, says she prides herself on being a fiscal watchdog for the taxpayers of the state. In a recent debate, Malliotakis boasted that she has voted against raising taxes more than 300 times during her years in office.
Malliotakis, who was born, raised and still lives on Staten Island, first won her Assembly seat in 2010, beating incumbent Democrat Janele Hyer-Spencer largely on a platform of improving transportation services in the district.
She said she fought to restore full service to the B37 bus, which runs along Third Avenue in Bay Ridge. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) had truncated the route. Elected officials, including Malliotakis, fought to convince the MTA to restore the full bus route.