Dear Lucas,
When the legislature gaveled in for the 2013 session, we had a lot of work to do and the opportunity to work together to get it done. My friend Andrea Stewart-Cousins – whom many of you helped me to elect in 2006 – took the reins leading our Senate Democratic Conference, becoming the first woman to lead a legislative conference in the history of New York State and giving us a clean break with the past. A majority of senators were elected as Democrats.
But five so-called "independent Democrats" broke off and allied with Republicans to form a "majority coalition," denying New Yorkers the Democratic majority they voted in at the ballot box. Still, they promised a different model: one of bipartisanship and reform. They pledged their actions would make it possible to pass progressive legislation. I knew the odds were long, but I did try to hold out hope that they meant it. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that they couldn’t – or wouldn’t – deliver on their promise.
I will not settle for this.
Please, help me return to Albany stronger than ever by making a contribution to my reelection campaign! Any amount, no matter how much, will help me keep fighting for a pro-reform Democratic majority and will help send a strong message to Albany's power brokers that the East Side of Manhattan is committed to change.
We had plenty of priorities facing us that would have been no-brainers with a unified Democratic majority: ethics and anti-corruption measures, a moratorium on hydrofracking, marijuana law reforms, the NYS DREAM Act, and a desperately overdue minimum wage increase, just to name a few. We accomplished none of these, except for a self-defeating "victory" on minimum wage.
The final deal the coalition produced on minimum wage horrified many progressives and conservatives, because it dramatically watered down and delayed the minimum wage increase while tying it to a tax credit giveaway benefiting large-scale minimum-wage employers like Wal-Mart and fast food chains. Worse still, the tax credit creates horrifically perverse incentives, incentivizing the short-term hiring of teenage workers and actually punishing employers for giving these workers any kind of raise over the minimum wage. As policy, this isn’t a reasonable "compromise" – it’s counter-intuitive!
The two biggest progressive priorities that faced us this year – comprehensive campaign finance reform, and a ten-point Women’s Equality Act including adoption of Roe v. Wade’s protections into our state law – both seem to have stalled out without a substantive vote on the Senate floor, despite six months of public debate and discussion. This, more than anything, is a sign that the old Albany culture – one of hiding from tough votes and allowing leaders to bottle up legislation supported by majorities of New Yorkers – is alive and well.
There were one or two real victories this year – like Governor Cuomo’s success in pushing through important new gun regulation legislation – but more than anything, these just highlight how much more we could do with a responsible, progressive Democratic majority. This is New York State – responsible gun control shouldn't have been a marquee fight or a signature accomplishment, it should have been a no-brainer.
The good news is that the Democratic freshman class in the Senate is an outstanding group of legislators. My No Bad Apples-endorsed colleagues George Latimer, CeCe Tkaczyk, and Ted O’Brien have all made their mark as policy heavyweights who are committed to changing the way Albany works, and their fellow freshmen Terry Gipson, Brad Hoylman, and James Sanders have all impressed as well. And perhaps perversely, the indictments of a few more bad apples have silver linings of their own – they will make room for new, higher-quality colleagues very soon. The frustrations of working in New York State government are very real – but despite them, our Democratic Conference is moving in the right direction, and we are more ready than ever before to move New York State in the right direction.
Please help me continue fighting the good fight to move our state in the right direction! The deadline for my filing is this Thursday, July 11th. However much you can contribute by midnight on Thursday would mean a great deal to me.
My way forward is clear. Keep holding this "majority coalition" accountable, and keep working to add responsible, progressive, pro-reform members to our conference in every corner of the state. That’s what I’ve done since my election to the Senate eleven years ago, and that’s what I’ll keep doing. We’re almost there.
Sincerely,