Benjamin Kallos

Benjamin "Ben" Kallos is an American lawyer and politician. On September 10, 2013 he defeated Micah Kellner in the New York City Council election primaries, and will be the Democratic candidate for the 5th New York City Council District, representing Manhattan's Upper East Side, in the election. While working as an attorney Kallos became involved with and serves as Statewide Coordination Committee Chair for the New York Democratic Lawyers Council organizing and training over 4,000 attorneys and 350 law students, to help protect the rights of any voter, irrespective of party, to vote in any election.

In 2006, Kallos was appointed to Community Board 8 Manhattan, where he continues to serve as a Public Member. In addition to serving on the Community Board, Kallos also served as Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Jonathan Bing. In 2009, Kallos became Director of Policy for former New York City Public Advocate Mark J. Green, with whom he worked on 100 Ideas for a Better City. Kallos signed on with Bill Samuels who founded New Roosevelt, a reform-minded political action committee. In 2003, Greem, Bing, and Samuels all endorsed Kallos over Kellner.

He has been recognized as technology entrepreneur since attending Bronx High School of Science. He has founded or collaborated on several online initiatives including OpenLegislation.org to put New York State Assembly and New York State Senate attendance and voting records online for free for the first time, WikiLaw.org (merged with JurisPedia.org) to make the law more accessible, and VoterSearch.org to enable 20 million New Yorkers to verify their voter registration, after learning that 2,000,000 voters had been dropped from the voter rolls.

2013 primary
On August 31, 2013, the New York Times endorsed Kallos in the Democratic Primary saying, "Ben Kallos brings fresh ideas and merits this seat." On September 10, 2013, he won the primary for the Democratic nomination for City Council, with 45.67% of the vote.