Shelley Mayer for Senate

Never mind the millions of dollars of attack ads depicting Shelley Mayer as a corrupt crony Democrat and caricaturing Julie Killian as a Trump-robot Republican. The candidates in next Tuesday’s Westchester special election for state Senate are both accomplished, competent women.

While both would be marked improvements over the depressingly low caliber of senators we have suffered under, our endorsement goes to Mayer, who has a stronger stand on the need to clean up the sewer that is the state Capitol.

All the hullabaloo about one lousy Senate seat to be decided by about 50,000 voters is because the GOP-run chamber is closely divided; should Mayer retain the seat for Democrats, that party will have a chance of taking control in November.

Killian, a ex-Rye city councilwoman, has valuable experience fighting opioid addiction with a non-profit she founded. She is also appealing as she breaks with her party to back the Child Victims Act, which would lengthen immorally short statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse.

Also bucking many in the GOP, Killian wisely supports gun controls. On ethics, she says she would refuse a corrupt lulu payment handed out to every member — and opposes a pay raise.

Unfortunately, she does not back closing the LLC fundraising loophole, which lets unlimited amounts of money flood into campaigns through shell corporations. Nor does she want to end or even limit outside income, one of the most corrupting, corrosive forces in the state Legislature.

Mayer, a Yonkers assemblywoman, is right on all those issues but tougher on ethics, calling for an LLC loophole fix and bar on outside income. She vows to break with Democrats if and when they seek profligate spending increases.

In interviews, her command of the issues impressed, whereas Killian fumbled key questions, such as how a state tax cap she touts would work.

The big knock on Mayer: When she was counsel to the Senate Democrats in 2009 and 2010, she was approached by two women saying that they were suffering sexual harassment. The women tell The News that Mayer dropped the ball.

Mayer says that she followed procedures under the weak protections the Senate had then and still has, passing the report to the proper office. Seared by the incidents, she vows to improve the Senate’s workplace guidelines.

Having learned the hard way about Albany, Mayer would make a fine senator.