Noah Burroughs for Assembly District 18
Assemb. Noah Burroughs (D-Hempstead) is running for reelection. Credit: James Escher
Find out the candidates Newsday's editorial board has selected on your ballot: newsday.com/endorsements2026
Incumbent Noah Burroughs, 50, became famous in and around his home community of Hempstead Village as a player for the Jets in the National Football League. Over the past two decades, however, he tackled the challenge of teaching, in the Hempstead school district, and now he's finishing his first term as a lawmaker.
In the Assembly, Burroughs keeps his eyes on ways to assist education and youth. Recently, he was credited with getting $80,000 in state money allocated for improving battered basketball courts at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Park in Freeport. He also secured $20,000 to upgrade bathrooms at Bishop Frank O. White Park in Freeport and make them compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In an editorial board meeting, Burroughs, who voted for a moratorium on AI data centers across the state, expressed deep skepticism about their ultimate value to local communities if built.
As he did in his 2024 campaign, Burroughs criticizes the current funding method for charter schools for drawing resources from the public schools serving most students, a strong sentiment in the majority Democratic caucus. He also defends the State Legislature's high-cost improvement of state pension packages for Tier 5 and Tier 6 government employees, a move that was mostly a matter of consensus for both major parties in Albany.
Burroughs' Republican opponent is Charlene Jackson, 60, of Baldwin, who is special counsel for the Nassau County Assessor's Office. On development policy, she speaks constructively of making maximum use of land trusts to remove the scourge of so-called zombie houses in the district.
A former commissioner of the Village of Hempstead Community Development Agency who laments the lack of affordable housing, Jackson told the editorial board: "Rather than new development, let's redevelop what we already have, and bring these houses back on the tax rolls." Jackson would like more community organizations to tap into the housing trust fund model. Housing trust funds, which exist at the federal, state and local levels, are pools of money used to create, preserve and rehabilitate affordable housing.
Newsday Opinion endorses Burroughs.
ENDORSEMENTS ARE DETERMINED solely by the Newsday editorial board, a team of opinion journalists focused on issues of public policy and governance. Newsday’s news division has no role in this process.
