Barbara
S. Lifton
125th Assembly District
Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton
represents the 125th Assembly District, which includes
all of Tompkins County, the City of Cortland and the
towns of Cortlandville and Virgil in Cortland County.
Ms. Lifton was elected with Democratic and Working Families
support.
Ms. Lifton was raised in Geneseo,
where she attended public schools. She received a B.A.
in English, with certification to teach Secondary English,
in 1973 and an M.A. in English in 1985, both from SUNY
Geneseo. She taught high school English at Geneseo Central
School from 1976 until 1982 and in Ithaca schools from
1985 until 1988. Ms. Lifton was also a member of the
New York State United Teachers, the Ithaca Teachers
Association, the PTA and the Ithaca Hockey Boosters.
For fourteen years, Ms. Lifton served
as Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Marty Luster. She is
very active in the Democratic party, a member of the
Tompkins County Democratic Committee and Treasurer of
the 3rd Ward (Ithaca City) Democratic Committee. Her
career in local politics began in 1988 when she managed
Mr. Luster's first successful run for New York State
Assembly.
Beyond her commitment to the Democratic
Party, Ms. Lifton has been closely involved with many
important community groups. She was a long-time member
of the steering committee of the Tompkins County Nuclear
Weapons Freeze Campaign and did local fundraising for
Freeze Voter in 1986. She worked for many years with
Justice for All, a local group that fought cuts to Medicare
and Social Security and worked locally on living wage,
welfare and health issues. Ms. Lifton co-founded the
Coalition for Community Unity in 1998 to combat hate
groups and was also the originator of the Democratic
Response Group, a Democratic Party advocacy group. She
served for two years on the Cornell/Community Waste
Management Committee and was a member of the Ithaca
Area Health Care Network.
She lives in Ithaca with her husband,
Don. Ms. Lifton has two children, Christine Brouwer
and Paul Sylvester, stepdaughter Rebecca Lifton, and
grandson, Jackson.
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