By Dan Murphy
The much-anticipated State Senate contest between republican Sen. Terrence Murphy and former County Legislator Pete Harckham in the 40th District of northern Westchester has yet to materialize. Harckham, who recently defeated indivisible candidate Robert Kesten in the democratic primary last month, has yet to raise money, win over the progressive wing of the party, and receive the promised support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Rising newspapers has also learned that Harckham has been “working” two taxpayer funded state jobs until he began to run for State Senate. This practice, known as “double dipping,” has been rejected by this newspaper and many other fiscal watchdogs and taxpayer groups, who refuse to pay for the excesses and patronage of those who want to take advantage of their political connections.
Harckham has recently been in the news for his state job as director of intergovernmental Affairs for the New NY Bridge project, where, according to the Journal News, he was not important enough to be privy to the opening date of the bridge just two weeks before it opened. There was no public announcement of Harckham’s hiring for the Mario Cuomo Bridge for his position replacing former News 12 anchor Bryanx Conneybearx xxxxxx.
But there was a public announcement for Harckham’s first state job, as “assistant director of the Office of Community Renewal,” back in 2015. And Harckham did not leave his first job when he took his second state post, according to state payroll records.
Harckham has collected more than $300,000 from his two state jobs over the last two years, according to state payroll records, which anyone can view at seethroughny.net/payrolls. Harckham was paid by the New York State Thruway Authority and the Housing Trust Fund Corporation, “a public benefit corporation which administers the low-income Housing Trust Fund Program,” according to the website.
What Harckham does, or has done, in either position, is unclear. Meeting records obtained by the Murphy campaign indicate that Harckham attended only one meeting of the Office of Community Renewal. Questions are now being raised about how Harckham could perform the duties of both positions at the same time, with the only logical answer being that both positions were “low-show” jobs, a term used to explain employees who are paid to come in once in a while to collect their paychecks.
Democratic party squabble, and an inability to raise campaign funds have also stalled Harckham’s campaign. Some members of the progressive, indivisible wing of the democratic party believe that Harckham is “not true blue,” with the belief that Cuomo recruited Harckham into the race as a stalking horse, who is going to throw the election to Murphy so that the Senate Republicans maintain control as a foil while the governor runs for president.
The way in which Harckham was recruited into the Senate race at the last minute left bad blood between many blue wave democrats, including True Blue NY, the coalition of several progressive democratic groups who vetted some of this year’s Democratic State Senate challengers recently and decided to mobilize on behalf of 18 Senate candidates, but did not endorse Harckham. “Having (Cuomo) as an ally is important but on the other hand, within the activist wing of the party, it’s a detraction,” said Harckham in an interview with the Pace Chronicle.
It is widely believed that Harckham decided to run because he was told to run by the governor and other state democrats, just before he was to take a post in county government under County Executive George Latimer.
So far, the campaign funds from Cuomo and from the state Democratic committees have yet to pour into Harckham’s campaign account, which as of the last filing had a balance of $2,874, compared to $418,000 in Murphy’s account.
Some Westchester democrats are surprised that the governor and the State Democratic committees that are funding other Senate democrats appear to have abandoned Harckham. “By this time, both the democratic and republican State Senate committees have their lists of competitive races, and those races where they are going to spend their dollars. If you are not on their radar at this point, the funds won’t be coming,” said one Westchester democrat.
Research continues into how Harckham got his introductions to the governor, which resulted in him resigning his BOL post to take his first state job. Harckham is from South Salem, as is another South Salem, and very close friend and “brother” of the Cuomo family. His name is Joe Percoco. More on that connection next week.
