By Dan Murphy
One of Westchester’s hottest political contests this year is for State Senate in the 40th District, which includes many northern Westchester towns and runs north into Putnam and Dutchess counties. Incumbent Republican State Sen. Terrence Murphy will try to fight through the blue wave of progressive Democratic victories in recent elections in the county.
Murphy’s opponent is yet to be determined. Two Democrats, Robert Kesten and Peter Harckham, will face off in a September Democratic primary to see who their party’s candidate in November will be.
We wrote a recent story on this race that we want to update our readers on, and show – in our view – the insanity of politics today. In our June 22 issue, we highlighted the battle between Kesten and Harckham in the race to win Democratic support. Also in that story, we included information about Murphy and his sponsoring a voter identification bill.
We incorrectly reported in that story that Murphy had sponsored the bill this year. In fact, Murphy sponsored the bill two years ago. That bit of information was not included in the press release sent out by the Harckham campaign, which attracted our interest.
Even the NY Post appeared to be duped by the attempts of Harckham and State Senate Democrats to make Murphy’s two-year-old voter ID bill current, and to link it to President Donald Trump.
We spoke to Murphy’s campaign and have agreed to the correction above. However, in a comment from the NY Post story, and in a recent appearance on Fox News, Murphy attempted neither to disavow his sponsorship and support for the bill, nor did he even mention that he proposed the bill two years ago.
Murphy defended his bill. “Our right to vote is among our most sacred,” he said, adding that the bill asks for the same residency requirements as a “recreational fishing license,” wrote NY Post reporter Carl Campanile.
On Fox News, Murphy said: “This is common-sense legislation. My son needs ID to take out a book at the library. All we are asking for is a photo ID that matches your signature. Seventeen other states have this law.”
Murphy admitted that his bill has no chance of becoming law. “I think it gets through the Senate but will not pass the Assembly,” he said. “The right to vote is sacred and people who want to vote should have to present the same ID as if they wanted to apply for a fishing license.”
This story, and the political spinning on both sides of the aisle, points to the dysfunction we now have in our country’s discourse. When speaking to the conservative media, the NY Post and Fox News, Murphy wants to highlight his conservative bonafides; but when speaking to the local media, he wants it known that he sponsored the bill two years ago, before Trump was elected president.
But democrats are also guilty of misrepresentation in that they are trying to find anything to link Murphy to the president, who remains under water in the polls and unpopular in New York State. The release from Harckham made it seem as if Murphy had just submitted the voter ID bill and included a Trump tidbit to boot.
“According to Harckham, calls for voter ID regulations can be traced back to Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud,” wrote the Harckham campaign in its release.
Unfortunately, this is a preview of the campaign to come. Look for Democrats to try to link Murphy to Trump, and for Murphy to peg either Harckham or Kesten to liberal-progressive ideas that will bankrupt the taxpayers in the district.
One issue that the Murphy campaign has tried to tie to either Harckham or Kesten is single-payer health care for all New Yorkers, which Murphy is calling “Albanycare.” Kesten supports single-payer, which would give all New Yorkers health care, similar to or the same as Medicare; Harckham has not publicly commented on the idea, which will not become law this year.
A majority of New Yorkers do not want single-payer, including most union members and those who already have health insurance. A recent story in Crain’s estimated the cost of single-payer health care in New York at $90 billion – more than half the entire current state budget.
“Pete Harckham cannot expect to be taken seriously if he fails to explain his position on Albanycare and many other important issues, such as the governor’s recent decision to pardon paroled cop killers, rapists and pedophiles, and allowing them to vote,” said Martha Ruiz-Jiménez, the spokesperson for the Committee to Elect Terrence Murphy.
Ruiz-Jiminez also underscored the “bickering” between Kesten and Harckham, which includes Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is said to be a driving force behind getting Harckham in the race. “Reports say progressive activists are left feeling infuriated and betrayed after the governor himself was working the phones to coax former County Legislator Peter Harckham to enter the SD-40 race,” she said. “I’m getting my popcorn ready as we watch the bickering. So much for Democratic unity.”
After leaving the County Board of Legislators where he served for several years, Harckham ran for Assembly in 2010, losing a Democratic primary to David Buchwald. Harckham then took a job with Cuomo’s administration in the Office of Homes and Community Renewal.
Democratic sources told Rising newspapers in May that Harckham was set to take a post in the administration of County Executive George Latimer before being “strongly encouraged” to run for State Senate by the governor.
“The governor must feel that the so-called Indivisible movement is a joke,” said Ruiz-Jiménez. “He clearly doesn’t trust local Democrats to make the right call, but while knifing them in the back, he is recycling a stale candidate. Voters have already rejected Peter Harckham and they will do so again if given the chance.”
And it’s only July, folks… 150 days until Election Day.
