By Dan Murphy
It didn’t take long for Westchester democrats and republicans to take a look at the upcoming election of 2020 in November and realize that the most competitive contest in the county will be for State Senate, between Senator Peter Harckham, a democrat, and former County Executive, republican Rob Astorino.
Astorino, the former two term Westchester County Executive who ran for Governor in 2014, has become target #1 for all of the usual interest groups in Westchester, who would like to end his political career once and for all, by re-electing Harckham on November 5.
But the 40th State Senate District runs from northern Westchester into Putnam and Dutchess Counties, and President Donald Trump won this district in 2016. Harckham was able to narrowly defeat former State Senator Terrence Murphy in 2018, and will have the help of every democrat in the state.
The hyper-partisan nature of politics in 2020 can be found in the first back and forth between Astorino and Harckham over high school mascots.
Harckham sponsored a bill to try and remove racially offensive mascots, including those with Native American symbols and other “race-based mascots.”
Harckham’s initial idea, which is being attempted to names of sports across the country, is a good one. If your local high school has a team name, or mascot, that is offensive to any part of your community, or any taxpayer, should be removed.
But Harckham took the idea of eliminating offensive mascots to an unacceptable level, and form of punishment for local school districts who could not comply with the order. Either remove your mascot or lose State Education funding.
Westchester High School’s that are affected include the Valhalla High School Vikings and Horace Greely High School Quakers. Just over the Westchester border in Putnam County, the Mahopac High School Indians are also on the clock to change their name. According to the Astorino campaign, the schools in questions would lose $5.6 Million for Valhalla, $9.5 Million for Horace Greely, and $32 Million for Mahopac.
Shortly after Harckham’s bill became public, taxpayers in those communities questioned why Harckham would support the loss of state education aid in their school district. “Defunding schools over a mascot will hurt more poor children than a silly mascot ever will,” was one of many comments.
Astorino jumped on what seemed like too extreme a penalty in Harckham’s bill, calling it “assinine”. Harckham responded first by claiming that the bill was not his. “Last week, the Senate website errantly ascribed my name to a bill that would strip funding from schools that had mascots named after Native Americans. That is not my bill,” said Harckham.
Actually, Harckham’s bill went further and included any race- or ethnicity-based school mascots. A Zoom meeting recording shows Harckham admiting that the bill is his and that he amended it under fire from constituents.
“It’s disturbing to watch a state senator be blatantly untruthful with his constituents, especially over critical school funding. With everything going on in the world right now, this is his priority?”
“Mr. Harckham’s bill has rightly outraged tens of thousands of his constituents desperate to get their children safely back into schools and resume some form of normalcy in their lives. Thousands of parents have lost their jobs because of Covid, and the loss of school funds would result in dramatic local tax increases that would literally break them economically,” said Astorino who called on Harckham to withdraw the legislation.
The next political spat between Harckham and Astorino came when Astorino sent out a mailing that included kind words from democrats from when he was County Executive. That story next week.
