By Jason Emerson
Editor
Candidates for the November elections for state assembly and state senate came to Cazenovia last week to lay out their positions on a range of issues. About 60 people attended the candidate forum, held in the Cazenovia High School auditorium and sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Cazenovia.
Democrats Rachel May (Senate) and Bill Magee (Assembly) and Republicans Janet Burman (Senate) and John Salka (Assembly) answered audience member questions on topics including state ethics reform, improving the state economy, gun control and mental health, county casino revenues, unfunded mandates, the state parole system, the cost of prescription drugs and health care and women’s reproductive health.
The senate candidates, who both live and work in the city of Syracuse and are basically unknown in the Cazenovia area, had a stark contrast between their opinions, with May leaning hard left politically and Burman leaning hard right.
“I’m running because the state senate is where good laws go to die year after year,” said May, a first-time political candidate who works as a coordinator of sustainability education at Syracuse University. “I’m excited to represent this district in the senate. There’s a whole lot we can do with a Democratic majority.” May said she supports universal health care, gun control, reforming the state criminal justice system, restoring voting rights to convicted criminals who have served their time, early voting, automatic voter registration and a state income tax “to redress income inequality.”
Burman, an economist who served for eight years as district administrator for the New York State Workers’
Compensation Board, Syracuse District, said she is running for senate “because I want to help eliminate barriers to us having a prosperous economy in New York state … a prosperous economy is the basis for all healthy communities.” Burman said she supports lower taxes, fewer state regulations, term limits on elected officials, reducing the amount of unfunded mandates by the state, gun rights and more transparency in government.
On the issues, May and Burman held widely divergent views. Some of the major issues discussed were:
Ethics reform
Burman said if elected she will sponsor legislation to prohibit campaign donations from anyone that does business with the state of New York – “That’s the no. 1 conflict of interest” in political campaigns, she said. She believes in term limits because she believes the power of incumbency leads down the road to ethics violations, and she said she wants to end the state practice of doling out economic improvement funds by the power of one person (the governor) or one group of people. She also wants to create a state database of all state contractors to create “full transparency” in state business.
May said we need to “reign in in the campaign finance system” and she believes public financing of campaigns would make politicians responsible to taxpayers rather than to special interests. She also believes the Joint Committee on Public Ethics needs to be filled by public appointments and not by political appointments.
State economy
May said to help the economy, the state needs to improve infrastructure, ensure the hiring of local people on all state projects and promote green energy to create jobs and reduce costs.
Burman said economic development should be “organic” and based on the marketplace. She believes in lower taxes and reduction in state regulations on businesses. “I believe taxes should be lower across the board for everyone in this state,” she said.
Gun control and mental health laws
Burman said she does not believe in gun control, is a strong proponent of the Second Amendment and believes the state should enforce the gun laws already on the books. She believes the state “woefully underfunds” mental health needs.
May said she supports gun control and the SAFE Act and is in favor of universal background checks and more efficient background checks when buying weapons. “We definitely have too many guns in our culture and our communities,” she said.
Health care costs
May said she supports “heath care for all” and believes universal health care will save taxpayers money. She said the New York Health Act “has been designed very well.”
Burman said health care needs to be more accessible — the state needs to “get out of the way of innovative solutions.” She also supports more funding to community health centers.
In the Assembly race, incumbent Magee and challenger Salka are running against each other for the third consecutive election. Their positions on issues remain as they have for the past six years, with Magee saying that all the issues discussed have been and will continue to be addressed in Albany, and he agreed they should be addressed, while Salka hammered the message that state government is broken and corrupt, and sweeping change needs to made by voters in who they send to the state capital as their representatives.
“It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve the district I have for years,” Magee said. “There’s some real issues that have to be dealt with,” including keeping agriculture sustainable, equal distribution of school funding, health care, election reform and ethics reform.
“This year’s election will change the landscape of our state and our country,” Salka said. “The quality of life is terrible in New York state … it isn’t anything like it used to be… we desperately need change and we need to start with this election.”
Audience member Jackie Mineo, of Brookfield, was generally impressed by the candidates. “I am interested especially in the senate candidates; I’m not a party person, I vote for the candidate,” she said. “I was very impressed with May; she was intelligent and presented her points well. Burman was also very well spoken. And Magee is the old workhorse — he doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t have to because he does much.”
Voting in this year’s election is from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. at polling stations around Madison County. To see sample ballots and find your polling station, visit the Madison County Board of Elections website at madisoncounty.ny.gov.
