The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Valesky looking forward
Democratic senator running unopposed for 53rd District
ALBANY>> New York’s government may be a perpetual scandal machine, stumbling from bad to worse, but for state Sen. David Valesky, D-53, life is good.
He is running for re-election next month unopposed, just as he ran unopposed in 2014 and 2012.
He is part of the Independent Democratic Conference, whose political power has grown tremendously since he and other breakaway Democrats formed the group in 2011 and allied with Senate Republicans.
“That would be a question
you’d have to ask the other side,” he said this week when asked why he doesn’t have a Republican opponent once again this year. Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-50, has said it would be too difficult to try to dislodge Valesky fromthe seat he has held since 2005.
Asked why he is seeking re-election, Valesky said he enjoys the work, which he described as serving “the people of the 53rd Senate District in a host of ways.” The job is full-time for Valesky, who in his annual financial disclosure report says his only other outside income is a small salary as the organist during Mass at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Oneida.
Valesky and the other four members of the IDC (three from NYC and one from Rockland County) are now poised to decide who controls the state Senate after the November election. They are also expected to gain a sixth member, a New York City Democratic candidate, who says she will caucus with the IDC if she wins next month.
By all accounts, the IDC is here to stay.
“There’s no question about that,” Valesky said. “We have, I think very clearly, been successful in the goals that we set out initially when we formed the conference. Our independence has given us a much greater ability to really advocate on behalf of our constituents and move things forward.”
Valesky and other legislators are poised to get a raise on Jan. 1, thanks to a law passed in the middle of the night in 2015. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders created a special commission to recommend a raise by Nov. 15 that will take effect automatically unless the Legislature returns before the end of the year to vote to reject it.
The base pay of state lawmakers has been $79,500 for the past 18 years, and one recommendation would push it as high as $116,900, a 47 percent hike, in line with the 38 percent raise they got the last time around. Their pay is supplemented by leadership lulus (according to the New York Times, “’Lulu’ is an ancient New York term that once meant payment in lieu of expenses, but now refers to prized extra payments that the vast majority of legislators get for leadership duties”) per diems on working days, and transportation expense accounts.
The per diem is $175 a workday for food and lodging. If it is a partial day and no lodging, they get $59 for meals. Mileage, tolls, travel expenses, etc. are paid based on vouchers submitted by members of the Legislature.
The IDC’s powerful influence relative to their numbers in the 63-seat Senate grows out of a split among Democrats and the political ingenuity of Senate Republicans holding onto majority control despite party enrollment trends that have made the once-powerful New York GOP a shadow of its former self.
A Siena Poll out this week showed that Democrats with Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket are poised to carry New York for the eighth-straight presidential election, which could be interpreted as bad news for the chances of Senate Republicans to keep their majority control.
Whatever the outcome, pundits say the coalitionstyle majority control of the Senate could continue, with Valesky’s group sharing power with either the GOP under current Majority Leader John Flanagan of Long Island or Democrats led by Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers.
Valesky said the IDC has gotten results on many different fronts, from jobs and education to health care and agriculture.
“The formation of the conference was sort of a way to push back against a partisan Legislature that we had for many, many years and putting policy above politics,” he said. “That is exactly what the IDC is standing for and has stood for, focusing on getting results.”
With the nonstop scandals coming out of the state Capitol, Valesky has served in Albany as multiple leaders of the Senate and Assembly have ended up convicted of corruption charges or driven from office on sex charges.
The 2009 Senate coup shut down the Legislature for weeks, and a Democratic comptroller was sent to prison. Of the last three Democratic governors, Eliot Spitzer quit in a sex scandal, David Paterson was driven from office by multiple scandals, and Cuomo has seen his top aides arrested and charged with bribery and other crimes.
Asked about what he’s hearing from his constituents, Valesky said they have focused instead on the accomplishments of the Legislature.
“People really appreciate the fact that we have been working together in most cases in really bipartisan cooperation unlike what we see fromthe federal government,” Valesky said.
The 53rd District includes all of Madison County and parts of Oneida and Onondaga, including portions of Syracuse and rural communities to the southeast.
Valesky has only praise for Cuomo, whose former top aides have been charged in a pay-to-play contract-rigging scandal that has shaken his administration and threatens his political future.
“I think you have to look at results and where we’ve come in the six years now that he has served as governor,” Valesky said. “Under his leadership, he certainly without question brought us a long way from the days of dysfunction and inability to really solve the major issues of the day.”
He credits Cuomo with improving the state’s fiscal responsibility, by capping spending and tax increases.
Cuomo, in turn, gave Valesky a shoutout in his State of the State speech in January. “Senator Valesky is right,” Cuomo said, referring to a call for ethics reform.
As for 2017, Valesky said one of his top priorities is getting a share of gambling revenues to Madison County.
“Madison County is the only county in the state that is hosting gaming and yet not receiving any portion of the revenue from those proceeds,” he said. “So that’s a problem that I believe needs to be fixed.”
Cuomo vetoed a bill to do that this fall, but Valesky said he is working with the governor’s office to come up with an alternative solution.