A co-worker of mine lives in the Yonkers (NYC) area, so since November I have been giving her the hourly updates on the NY State Senate (35th District) race between Senator Spano (R) and Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D). Which if you don't know ended recently after recounts and court battles with the 9 term incumbent Senator Spano (R) winning by a margin of 18 votes (57,073 to 57, 055). NY State, if you are not familiar, is so gerrimandered, that Senate seats are never lost (controlled by the Republicans) and similarly state assembly seats are never lost (and controlled by Democrats). Yet if you were not paying attention you might have missed that we picked up 3 Senate seats, had a fourth come down to 18 votes, and even had a fifth candidate pull 41% against an incumbent who outspent him 20-1. Progress is happening in NY State, yet some of our most entrenched players in our democratic party seem to be vying for the status quo.
There are 81,456 Democrats, 48,068 Republicans and 38,442 non-affiliated voters registered in the 35th District. Yet a democratic candidate running for a state senate seat was considered an underdog from the begining. This makes no sense to me, a non-native New Yorker.
After Senator Spano was declared the winner, direct mailers went out all over his district proclaiming how great he is, and thanking the voters for re-electing him. Yesterday's mailer had a headline reading
Thanks to Senator Spano we have an on-time budget that reforms Medicaid and protects our healthcare
. I have no problems with elected officials bragging about themselves, but this mailer came from SEIU, New York's largest union. Apparently if you open it up and read the whole thing, you see that (soon to be ex-) Governor Pataki is threating to veto the budget and yadda yadda thats bad for everyone. SEIU, where basically any politically active NYC resident spent many hours organizing and phone banking for candidates at every level, should not be putting out literature thanking any Republican, and probably shouldn't be thanking several Democrats, as we have a horribly corrupt state government. But after coming off an election where an incumbent barely held on to his seat, we should not be helping to promote them, we should be instilling fear in them, forcing them left or at least to the center on any issue we want.
There is a good chance that the Democratic Party will control the office of the Governor and both the state senate and assembly in 2006, which is something rather shocking to most entrenched political figures in the bluest of all states. There is no excuse for anyone to be promoting anything good the people on the other side of the aisle are doing, let alone a group with the stature of SEIU. Senator Spano if not a lame duck, is in the fight of his life this term, and no one needs to be telling his constiuents that he is helping to pass budgets on time (crazy NY'ers wanting a budget passed on time) or reforming Medicaid and protecting healthcare.
SEIU remember who you are. You are the people that are helping us fight Wal-Mart. You support the progressive platform; families, healthcare, and education. You are not Senator Spano's PR Representatives.