Four women who are running primaries against incumbent IDC “Democrats” in the NY State Senate issued a challenge to the Senate leadership this week to include Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, leader of the Democratic caucus, in their budget negotiations. The IDC responded in the most condescending and insulting way possible, thus confirming the fundamental disregard for women at the heart of their cynical approach to government.
The background: In Albany, the big decisions have traditionally been made by “three men in a room” — the Governor, Senate Majority Leader, and Assembly Speaker. Lately, a fourth man has been included: the leader of the IDC (the renegade Independent Democratic Caucus that refuses to support Democratic leadership, even when voters return a majority of Dems to the Senate). There has NEVER been a woman in that room, and one of the many travesties of the IDC betrayal is that they are preventing Stewart-Cousins from finally breaking that glass ceiling.
The challenge: Among the issues the men will be deciding is the fate of New York sexual harassment policies. So four female candidates, Jessica Ramos, Jasmine Robinson, Rachel May (yours truly), and Alessandra Biaggi, pushed back. “It is shameful that a room of only men may determine what sexual harassment reform is included in the budget this year,” we wrote. “These men will decide whether taxpayers must continue to pay for sexual harassment settlements, whether confidential settlements are banned, and what a new sexual harassment policy will look like. Refusing to let a woman in the room for these negotiations sends a clear message to women across New York that our rights and our bodies should be legislated by men.”
The response: “These activists, orchestrated by [Working Families Party] leader Bill Lipton, are misinformed about NY State Senate process,” wrote IDC spokesperson Barbara Brancaccio.
In one short sentence, she
- implied that four women could not possibly have taken action on our own without a man’s prompting,
- belittled the declared candidates as “activists,”
- and insisted that we don’t know what we are talking about.
It could not be more clear: we must defeat the IDC in 2018 and send a woman into that smoke-filled room to open the windows and bring in some much-needed fresh air. It’s the only way we will clean up Albany and pass key legislation (health care for all, election reform, climate justice, immigrant rights, criminal justice reform, and so much more). Please support our candidacies and the no-IDC effort.