GOALS OUTLINED
Assemblyman John McDonald talks ethics, voting reform and opioid epidemic in free-ranging interview
TROY, N.Y. >> In the race for State Assembly in the 108th District, incumbent Democratic Assemblyman John McDonald was reelected to his seat in the New York State Assembly, running unopposed.
He outlined his goals heading into the new session as well as touching on the interests of his constituents in his online constituent survey.
Assemblyman McDonald hit on a range of issues from ethics and voting reform to vacant and abandoned buildings to battling the opioid epidemic.
“I really believe that we need voting reform in the worst of all ways. I think that there’s too much money in the election system,” McDonald said following the most expensive midterm election in history, which saw 2,224 Super PAC groups report receipts of $1.3 billion dollars.
“I think we also have to have early voting and we really need to get rid of this nonsensical multiple primaries throughout the year. We have the congressional primaries in June, we have the regular primaries in September and it’s a huge cost to the local governments and it’s not fair to the taxpay-
ers,” McDonald said of New York, one of 13 states without early voting.
“So that is a very large priority of mine to reduce that unfunded mandate on the counties and the corresponding municipalities and move to one primary day, probably more towards the June date than September because we need to be mindful of the overseas ballots.”
McDonald is also looking to create more transparency when it comes to financial disclosures.
“The bill I’m working on requires that elected officials or those running for state office would have to post in a format that’s downloadable and readable and transferable, their financial disclosure forms,” he said. “Currently, it’s in a PDF which is nearly impossible to search through.
“I have one bill to do that because I think that the public should know who their legislator is. Who has outside income and who does not.”
“Another area that I prioritize on and we’ve had some success in the Assembly and are hoping for some success in the Senate next year is what I call the light x bill which deals with vacant and abandoned properties,” McDonald added. “I’ve been trying to expedite the foreclosure process for counties or local governments on vacant or abandoned properties.
“Currently the residential is a two year period of tax delinquency and what I’m striving to do is move that up to one year. If a property’s been abandoned and documented abandoned, has code violations and has since been abandoned, the local taxing entity, whether it’s the county or the municipality or whoever forecloses will be able to foreclose in one year versus two years.
“This to me is a direct way of reducing these x’s you see on buildings because the sooner we foreclose on the buildings the less likely they’re going to fall into further disrepair and the better chance they have to move to a responsible steward to manage that property and just as importantly particularly for the cities it’s an opportunity to put properties back on the tax roll on a more meaningful way.”
“I’m looking to how to find a way to expand providers to help in the opioid and heroin crisis. One simple way is to allows pharmacists working with doctors to actually administer a long-acting injectable that whether it’s used for mental health stabilization or whether it’s used for drug addiction, there are many effective acting injectable medications that patients are not inclined to run back to the clinic regularly but they are comfortable going into their pharmacy and if their pharmacy has a relationship with a doctor to allow them to administer the long-acting injectable which provides more consistency of care,” said McDonald, adding how he’d like to see pharmacists be able to reduce the quantity of a prescription, which currently can’t happen unless the prescription is out of stock.
“Abill which at a patients request would allow pharmacists to reduce the quantity of the prescription. The thinking is the less pain medications in the household, the less of a chance for having an addiction.”
This Veterans Day, McDonald was also pleased to see his bill pass which supports Gold Star Mothers.
“The bill allows for an increase in the payment to Gold Star Mothers, it hasn’t been increased since 2008. We not only increased it but we indexed it to the cost of inflation over time. It’s a small token to our gold star mothers but it’s an appropriate one for the loss that they’ve endured,” he said.
As for his online constituent survey, McDonald says he’s already receiving a solid amount of feedback on a plethora of issues.
“I’ve already gotten in one and half days 76 messages back and I haven’t even mailed it out yet,” McDonald said of the rapid response. “The Child Victims Act, it’s overwhelming, the support in expanding the statute of limitations in both criminal and civil cases,” McDonald said of the Act, which has stalled in the Senate.
“I’m getting a lot of responses on student loan debt. A lot of support for early voting, absentee voting, and automatic voter registration. A lot of people are in favor of increasing the term of the legislative body from two years to four years and they’re not opposed to term limits after three terms or 12 years,” McDonald added.