Victor A. Jordan Officially Announces Bid For Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs’ Seat

If you’ve been paying attention to the race to replace Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs, who is bidding adieu to her seat in Albany after 36 years, you’ve probably heard the name Victor A. Jordan.

One of five candidates making a bid for the 42nd Assembly District (which covers Ditmas Park, Midwood, Flatbush, and parts of East Flatbush), Jordan filed with the state in April to run for the seat but has just recently officially announced his candidacy. In the September 9 primary, Jordan will face off against community activist Michele Adolphe, who ran against Jacobs in 2010; Democratic District Leader Rodneyse Bichotte, who challenged Jacobs in 2012; Mark Lieberman, a civic activist and journalist; and Rickie Tulloch, the deputy chief financial officer of Harlem Hospital Center and chairman of Jacobs’ Community Advisory Council.

Jordan, a Community Board 17 member, recently sent us a press release announcing his bid for office.

“Jordan’s whole life has been described by some people as a little miracle,” the candidate’s press release stated. “As a boy in secondary school, he was placed in a class with students with learning disabilities with the expectation that he would not amount to much. Somehow, his father discovered that Victor’s problem was that he could not read. After his father personally taught his son Victor how to read, Victor was placed in his correct grade level, where he then came first in his class and won the coveted book prize.”

As for the candidate’s story from there? Jordan graduated from Wingate High School in Flatbush, taught mathematics at Erasmus Hall High School, and first became involved in an election campaign when he lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the 1980s. At that time, he helped his professor, Clayton Majete, in his bid for state Assembly. When Majete was knocked off the ballot because he failed to satisfy the residency requirement, Jordan was asked to run instead – which he declined “because he and his mentor, professor Gordon A. Potter (Economics) of Pact University, felt that he was not prepared for political office at that time.”

Jordan went on to work as a photographer for the Caribbean News, and, through connections he made there, went on to help Una T. Clarke become the first Caribbean-American to be elected to the City Council in the 1980s.

“On the election night of Una’s victory, Jordan remembers dragging voters to polls to get them to vote for Una before the poll closed,” his press release said. “Una won the election by about five votes.”

Jordan became the vice president of Clarke’s first political club, CAMPO, and, around that time, worked with N. Nick Perry to “assure his victory in the 58th” Assembly District – which Perry still represents.

“Interestingly, during the whole period Jordan served as a mathematics teacher at Erasmus Hall High School, which is in the 42nd Assembly District, and pursued graduate studies in economics at the New School for School Research in Manhattan, which eventually land[ed] him a position teaching Economics at the Empire State College, SUNY,” the release stated.

In 1999, Jordan graduated from Albany Law School and passed the New York State Bar – almost immediately after which he accepted a position as a research fellow at the University of the West Indies. He was then selected by the Minister of Trade and Industry to be his trade advisor for European and Caribbean affairs.

Today, Jordan teaches labor law, is a member of CB 17, and was appointed to the By-Laws Committee of CB 14. He’s also a member of the Community Emergency Response Team and is a member of the Army Volunteers Corps.

“Veterans’ issues are very dear to his heart and, like President Obama, he is troubled when he becomes aware that veterans are not receiving the treatment for which they are entitled,” the release stated. “It is unacceptable that men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice to provide us with the freedom and opportunities that we enjoy are not be afforded the basic necessities when they return home after serving our country.

“Jordan believes that he has had an interesting career filled with opportunities to gain knowledge, experience, and wisdom,” the release continued. “He is running for the New York State Assembly with the hope of bringing all his training, experience, and wisdom to the service of the community. Back in 1980, when Jordan was first asked to run for office right after graduating from Pace University he was not ready and refused the offer, but now in the year 2014, equipped with a world of experience, he feels ready and prepared to serve the community in the New York State Assembly.”

Photo courtesy Victor A. Jordan