2013–2019 On June 11, 2012, Hoylman-Sigal declared his candidacy for the
27th District of the
New York State Senate, running for the seat of retiring state senator
Tom Duane. He won Duane's endorsement, as well as the support of numerous local politicians and unions. In the Democratic primary election held on September 13, 2012, he won 68% of the vote in a three-candidate field.
Hell's Kitchen activist and bar owner Tom Greco was his closest competition, winning 24% of the vote. In the general election in November he was unopposed. Hoylman-Sigal won the Democratic primary and general election (with 80% of the vote) in 2014, 2016 (with 96% of the vote), and 2018 (with 99% of the vote). In 2019, Hoylman-Sigal was the only openly gay member of the New York State Senate; he would later be joined by
Jabari Brisport in 2021. In December 2016, Hoylman-Sigal sponsored legislation known as the Tax Returns Uniformly Made Public (T.R.U.M.P.) Act, prohibiting New York State electors from voting for a presidential candidate who has not publicly released at least five years worth of tax returns no later than fifty days prior to a general election. Lawmakers in twenty-five other states followed suit in producing legislation to compel presidential candidates to release their tax returns. The idea was praised by the editorial board of
The New York Times. After the
2018 midterm elections, Hoylman-Sigal was appointed Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the majority, Hoylman-Sigal passed multiple pieces of legislation including the Child Victims Act, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (or GENDA), and a ban on so-called '
gay conversion therapy.' The bill would allow certain Congressional committees to perform oversight by reviewing the New York State tax returns of senior government officials; members of Congress suggested this could allow Congressional committees to review
Donald Trump's tax returns.
City & State, a New York-based political news organization, characterized Hoylman-Sigal as "the person behind state Senate’s progressive bills." In 2019, the Child Victims Act that Hoylman-Sigal sponsored was adopted. It extended New York's
statutes of limitations for
child sexual abuse and created a one-year lookback window within which survivors would be able to initiate claims against their abusers in cases where the statute of limitations had expired, and allowed them to bring a civil lawsuit against their abuser or institutions that enabled or protected their abuser by the age of 55 (up from the age of 23). Over 9,000 lawsuits have been filed under that law, including against the
Catholic Church, the
Boy Scouts, and other groups that cared for children.
2020–2025 In March 2021, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill, sponsored by Hoylman-Sigal, to repeal New York's ban on paid
gestational surrogacy. Assemblywoman
Amy Paulin introduced the bill in 2012. As of the bill's passage, only two other states (Louisiana and Michigan) retained laws explicitly banning paid surrogacy. In June 2021, the New York Senate passed the
Adult Survivors Act (ASA), which was sponsored by Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember
Linda Rosenthal. The bill failed to pass the Assembly in 2021. However, Rosenthal and Hoylman-Sigal introduced the ASA again the following year. This time, the legislation was enacted: it unanimously passed the Senate in April 2022, passed the Assembly on a 140–3 vote in May 2022, and was signed into law by Governor
Kathy Hochul. The bill established a one-year "lookback period" that allowed adult victims of sex abuse or sex crimes to bring civil lawsuits that were previously barred due to the
statute of limitations. The same month, Hoylman-Sigal was defeated in the Democratic
primary election for
Manhattan Borough President by
Mark Levine. In September, Hoylman-Sigal asked U.S. Senator
Maria Cantwell, the chair of the
Senate Commerce Committee, to engage in oversight of the
United States Center for SafeSport, and to step in to ensure that SafeSport is adequately conducting investigations. He referred to what he called SafeSport's failure to carry out impartial and thorough investigations and ensure the safety of athletes it is charged with protecting. In December, Hoylman-Sigal proposed legislation to ban landlords convicted of criminal activity from doing business with state-chartered banks.
Wells Fargo and
Bank of America,
Signature Bank and
New York Community Bank are not
state banks.
Steven Croman, a landlord notorious for harassing his tenants in New York, was the inspiration for this bill. To address
New York's housing crisis, Hoylman-Sigal proposed legislation to remove a number of zoning regulations in New York that he viewed as onerous. The legislation would eliminate parking requirements; prohibit localities from requiring large lot sizes for homes; and allow for the construction of up to four housing units on lots that were previously exclusively zoned for single-family housing. In 2023, Hoylman-Sigal became the New York State Senator for the
47th district, which was redistricted from the
27th district. Hoylman-Sigal's old district included
Chelsea,
Midtown, and the
East Village, up to north of
Columbus Circle. The new and more compact 47th district excluded the East Side and covered the
West Side, from Chelsea through the
Upper West Side. Hoylman-Sigal is a member of the Vote Blue Coalition, a progressive group and
federal PAC created to support Democrats in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania through voter outreach and mobilization efforts. In the December 2024, Hoylman-Sigal announced he would be
running for Manhattan Borough President in the Democratic primary the following June, where he prevailed with 55 percent of the vote after ranked-choice allocation. ==Personal life==