Baby panda Bei Bei at the National Zoo. (Photo by Rachel Sadon.)

Nothing seems to bring us together like the power of giant pandas. From Tian Tian’s glorious enjoyment of the snow, to Bei Bei’s first steps, to debates over whether baby pandas are even cute, we share in their happiness and their confusion. People travel to D.C. from all over to see the only giant pandas in the northern U.S.

But one New York legislator would like to change that, the New York Times reports. Meet Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. She wants to bring a pair of pandas to New York City.

“After the financial crisis, 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, it’s about time to have something happy,” [Maloney] said on a recent Monday, as she strode through the Bronx Zoo, wrapped in a scarf ornamented with pandas. “Let’s have a panda.”

But it’s not that easy. The National Zoo is part of a very elite group, because China controls to whom it leases a limited number of the creatures. (The Smithsonian this fall extended its agreement with China for another five years.) The only other zoos with giant pandas are in San Diego, Atlanta, and Memphis.

A New York panda exhibit would cost an estimated $50 million, which needs to be raised through private donations. (While New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has come around to the idea of pandas in the Big Apple, thanks to lobbying from Maloney, he and the Wildlife Conservation Society won’t back any plan that requires city or zoo money.) Luckily for Maloney, she scored the support of billionaire Maurice Greenberg, who used to run A.I.G.

At times, Maloney’s mission has put her at odds with others, though she seems to be getting some results.

In summer 2014, a senior official at the conservation society appealed to City Hall, writing in an email that things had reached “a new level of absurdity” as Ms. Maloney intended to bring a Chinese delegation to the Central Park Zoo.

“I think a statement saying that we appreciate her passion but we are not interested in pandas would be helpful,” the official wrote. “Clearly she doesn’t hear it when we say it to her respectfully.”

Nevertheless, Ms. Maloney received a message in October from the Chinese ambassador in Washington, Cui Tiankai, agreeing that China’s forestry authorities would enter preliminary talks with New York and would “consider the formal initiation of cooperation when conditions are mature.”

One person who supports Maloney’s efforts? Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. He told the Times, “Surely the greatest American city ought to have pandas.”