Rivera and her husband,Jamie Rogers,lived in a federally subsidized,low-income Section 8 apartment with an annual income limit of $61,050 for a family of two. Rogers,a former corporate lawyer at Sullivan &Cromwell,owns a growing coffee business,a Grand Street co-op apartment in Lower Manhattan,which he rents out,and a small family trust fund.[10] Pictures of Rogers on a yacht owned by his father William P. Rogers Jr.,a retired partner at Cravath,Swaine &Moore,were deleted before the Democratic primary.[11] Their eligibility was questioned as Rivera’s salary as a City Council staffer was $41,770,which means her husband would have had to earn less than $20,000 a year in order for the family to be under the limit.[10] Rogers explained his financial situation in an interview with The Villager and defended their eligibility due to his struggling coffee business and substantial debt.[10]
In 2019,as a co-chair of the Women’s Caucus,Rivera was involved in securing $250,000 for the New York Abortion Access Fund to provide abortions for women not covered by insurance or Medicaid,including for those who travel from out-of-state.[13] This funding made New York City the first to allocate money directly to abortion procedures.[14] She has called for more aid to reach the city’s public hospital system,including funding and programs around reproductive healthcare.[15] She also introduced a legislation to create a patient advocate’s office within the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to help New Yorkers navigate the healthcare system.[16]
In the same year,Rivera introduced legislations to create an Office of Active Transportation and Office of Pedestrians to assess conditions for safe biking and walking in the city and make recommendations for improvements.[17] She introduced and passed a legislation to strengthen protections for renters during periods of maintenance,renovation,and construction.[18] She introduced a legislation to require child protective specialists to explain to parents or caretakers about their rights during initial contact of an ACS investigation.[19] and passed bills to outlaw the sale of foie gras and outlaw pigeon trafficking.[20] In an effort to crack down on illegal hotel operators,she introduced a bill in June 2018 to require short-term rental companies such as Airbnb to report host data to the city.[21] The bill passed the Council 45–0 and was signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio on August 6,2018.[22]
She was listed on City &State’s 2020’s Above and Beyond for her work on strengthening abortions rights and combating sexual harassment.[23]
Rivera is Chair of the Council’s Committee on Hospitals and member of the Council's Women's Caucus,Progressive,and Black,Latino,and Asian Caucuses.[2]
In December 2024,Rivera was one of 31 council members to vote for a revised version of Mayor Adam's new zoning legislation called The City of Yes. It is a $5 billion proposal to allow the construction and conversion of legal and new 80,000 housing units in New York City.[26]
Rivera has been a supporter of allowing more density and affordable housing in the Manhattan neighborhoods of SoHo and NoHo.[29] She supported a Habitat for Humanity project to build low-income senior housing in a wealthy neighborhood’s community garden,a project that other New York politicians opposed.[29]
She has been a strong proponent of efforts to rebuild East River Park at higher elevation to make the neighorhood less vulnerable to storms.[29] Rivera is the only top candidate in the Democratic primary to not support allocating 100 percent of residential units in the proposed 5 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan as affordable housing.[30] She has raised a large amount of money from major real estate developers and lobbyists,including billionaire real estate developer Jed Walentas of Two Trees,[29] Kirk Goodrich,Don Capoccia,Robert Levine of RAL Companies,[31] Bruce Teitelbaum,and Daniel R. Tishman of Tishman Realty &Construction,the firm that managed the building of One World Trade Center.[32]The New York Times reported she has reached out to at least two other executives in the real estate industry for donations as of August 2022,according to recipients of her outreach.[29]
Rivera drew criticisms of treating LGBTQ+ New Yorkers as "political chess pieces" when she expressed support for religious exemptions that target members of the community in response to a question about her stance on the well-known same-sex wedding cake case in Colorado during an interview with Hamodia.[33] Rivera said she has put religious exemptions in legislation in the past and is "willing to explore that and do it on the federal level."[34] She walked back her statement and clarified that she opposes giving private businesses a pass on discriminating against LGBTQ+ people.[33]
Rivera was met with backlash for seemingly inviting PAC money by adding a "red box" to her website.[35] She was also called out by then-rival congressional candidate Dan Goldman for her investments in defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman,as well as the gun company Smith &Wesson.[36]
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