By JEFF MORRIS
The League of Women Voters held a candidate forum in Chappaqua on Oct. 9 for the 40th Senate District, co-sponsored by the LWVs of New Castle, Northeast Westchester, and Rockland County. The forum featured incumbent state Sen. Pete Harckham, a Democrat and Lewisboro resident, and challenger Gina Arena, a Republican and Somers resident. Arena previously ran against Harckham two years ago.
In her opening statement, Arena said she was running to do everything she can to lower costs for her neighbors, “some of whom are really, really struggling.” She said Albany needs to get its priorities straight; “it wastes money on nonsense while New Yorkers in real need get left behind.” She also said she is “leading the effort to defend girls’ sports in New York, which are under threat.”
Harckham listed accomplishments during his six years in office, including passing the Reproductive Health Act, “something my opponent opposed;” passing “common sense gun safety, like Red Flag laws,” and expanded background checks, which he again said Arena opposed; brought $210 million in funding back to the schools; cut middle class taxes five times; capped property taxes; cut small business taxes; provided $1.2 billion in grants to small businesses during the pandemic; brought $30 million in funding to municipalities and nonprofits, with $8 million going to first responders; and $280 million in road repairs.
Harckham named affordability as a key issue, and cited the education and municipal funding he had mentioned as taking the burden off of property taxpayers. He said doubling the senior property tax deduction helped seniors on fixed incomes stay in their homes.
Arena agreed that affordability is a top priority, but said in the past five years the budget has gone up $60 billion. She said people, especially seniors, are saying they have to choose between paying for their oil and paying for their pills. She said she would look at the budget line by line “to try and find out what we’re spending so much money on.” One item she was very concerned about was “the $2.5 billion that are going to be going toward the illegal immigration.” She said there are disabled children, seniors and veterans who “are not getting any amount close to that amount that is being used for the illegal immigration.”
“It’s time that we take care of New Yorkers and we stop worrying about everyone else at this moment,” said Arena.
Harckham responded by asking where Arena’s outrage was when Republican governors were “illegally sending tens of thousands of people against their will to New York,” when the Republicans who represent New York in the House “refused to provide funding to care for people who are coming into our municipalities and provide that relief to the taxpayers,” and when the Republicans, on former President Donald Trump’s orders, refused to pass a bipartisan bill “which would have finally fixed our broken immigration system.”
“As a person of faith, when we have people living in our community, I feel that I have an obligation to provide food, clothing and shelter,” said Harckham.
The two clashed sharply over crime. Harckham cited FBI and state Division of Criminal Justice Services figures showing crime down significantly in New York state over the last two years; the MTA announcing crime now being beneath pre-pandemic levels; and Putnam, Westchester and Rockland counties being three of the 10 safest in America. “Crime is down, and the reason is we’re investing in the things that make holistically safe communities,” he said.
Arena countered that Susan Cacace, who is running for Westchester District Attorney, said crime is up in Westchester. She also cited figures from the same DCJS Harckham had mentioned, showing crime has gone up. “I don’t understand how my opponent can say that crime has not gone up,” she said. “We need safety for the people of this senate district.”
Asked whether she believed climate change was responsible for increasing weather-related disasters, Arena said she does believe that climate change has contributed “to recent storms and the increase in the weather.” But asked what her plan was to address and mitigate human contributions to climate changes, Arena said, “I’ve never really honestly thought about it.” She said she thinks we use too many chemicals in our environment, and as a beekeeper she worries about the use of the herbicide Roundup. “I would like us to start getting away from so many different chemical reactions,” she said. “I also believe in composting. I have a garden in my yard, and I try to make sure that we live as clean a life as possible, and I teach my children the same thing.”
Harckham said that as chair of the Committee on Environmental Conservation, he thinks about this every day. “We passed the toughest climate protection legislation in the country, to transition from fossil fuels which are killing this planet” into a green economy, “also creating tens of thousands of good paying jobs.” He noted since he has been an elected official the electrical grid has had to be rebuilt four times because of storms. “The cost of not acting on climate change far outweighs the cost of acting on climate change,” he said.
When asked about a woman’s right to choose, Harckham said his position has never changed. “I’ve always been solidly in favor of reproductive health care freedom,” he said, referencing legislation that he helped pass, while noting reproductive health care will be codified in the Equal Rights Amendment, or Proposition One, that Arena opposes.
Arena said she has always believed “that it is not my business to make choices for other women” though her choice for herself is to be pro-life. “When it comes to the codifying of Prop One,” she said, “it is so much bigger than just abortion rights.” She said it talks about forcing spaces meant for women, including sports, prisons, locker rooms and domestic abuse shelters, to include men. “I’m very concerned that this Prop One is open-ended and will result in many lawsuits,” she said. Harckham used a rebuttal to say, “Referring to trans individuals as boys and men is insulting.”
After a separate question about Proposition One, Harckham said it simply codifies existing rights in New York state. He noted the state constitution currently only protects on the basis of race, religion, creed and color, while over decades numerous protections have been passed for people with disabilities, seniors, women, national origin, and the LGBTQ community, and he said those need to be codified as well.
Arena said she “did some research” — though she did not cite her sources — and that Proposition One would, in addition to allowing men into spaces meant for women, “harm the safety and security of our communities” and “dissolve parents rights’ by allowing minors to transition through life-altering drugs and surgeries without parental involvement.”
When the candidates were asked their positions on mixed competition, “including the right of transgender individuals to play sports,” Arena said it was her understanding that legislation under discussion was only about boys being able to bump girls off teams if there were no boys team available. “This really had nothing to do with transgender,” she said. “I don’t have an issue with transgender. I support keeping men out of girls’ sports. That’s what I’ve said all along. When are we going to start sticking up for our girls? What happened to all the feminists?”
Harckham said for many seasons he was a girls soccer coach in Lewisboro, and he would have happily coached it if it were a coed team.
“The town of Lewisboro started a coed softball team,” he noted. “Little League participation plummeted because parents wanted their young people in coed sports.” He said it was an option for localities and school districts, and the legislation that was proposed was “tanked” like thousands of other bills in Albany. “If local districts and local communities want coed sports, I’m not going to stand in the way of that,” he said.
The two exchanged barbs over additional issues including battery storage installations, affordable housing, and mental health and addiction services, with Harckham continuing to highlight the laws he has passed dealing with these issues, and Arena challenging the results he has gotten.
In closing statements, Harckham said he was running on his record, while Arena said, “if we keep sending the same people to Albany, we’re going to get the same result.”