I am high-fiving myself that we actually get a congressional race in Tribeca for the first time since… 1992? And from what I can tell it is going to get crazy! Bill de Blasio is setting up an exploratory committee, since the seat includes Park Slope, and the FEC has five candidates registered, only one of which lives in the new district — Tribecan Brian Robinson. I think this will be just beginning of the race, which will end in a primary on August 23.

Brad Hoylman, who has held the New York State Senate seat for soon-to-be-redrawn District 27 (the Village, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown, the LES) for 10 years, called me yesterday to say that he is definitely running. (I will update this post with his TCQ&A when he has a minute to turn it around and get a more recent picture — that’s him at his swearing in from 2012.)

“This is a consequential moment in our history with abortion rights, LGBT kids being under attack, gun control issues,” he said. “I cant think of a more important time to step up and run for this seat.”

Hoylman, who lives in the Village, was elected in 2011, having served on Community Board 2 for a decade, three of those as chair. His day job back then was as a lawyer — he worked for several firms and had a career in non-profit housing over his 28 years living in the city. (He’s 56). A Rhodes scholarship pulled him out of rural West Virginia, where he was raised, and took him to Oxford University in England and eventually to Harvard Law School.

He is married to filmmaker David Sigal and the couple has two daughters: a 4-year-old who goes to PS 41 and an 11-year-old who goes to Windward on the UES. (Helping kids with dyslexia is a passion project of his, and he has sponsored legislation that would create a statewide dyslexia task force to test each child.)

And like so many people who come here from small towns around the world, there’s that push-pull between that life and this.

“The Rhodes scholarship, that was my golden ticket out of the state,” Hoylman said. “But my mom was a public school teacher, and her influence keeps me focused as a legislator — without that I would not be who I am today.”

He’s chairman of the Committee on Judiciary in the Senate, and also serves on Cultural Affairs, Tourism and Parks; Finance; Libraries; Health and the Cities committees. He’s passed dozens of bills in the Senate, including the Child Victims Act, which allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to make claims against their abusers; GENDA, which extended human rights protections to transgender New Yorkers; and bills that banned flavored e-cigarettes, required backseat seatbelts and speed limits on the Westside Highway, and codified Roe v. Wade in the state constitution.

“I have passed some of the most progressive bills in Albany,” he said. “I’ve got the background — fighting for tenants, kids, seniors and safe streets. I want to leverage that experience on behalf of the new NY10.”