Tedisco, Ostrelich square off in combative 49th Senate district debate
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. >> One of the quietest political races this season came to a sudden halt Tuesday evening when scrappy incumbent state Sen. Jim Tedisco and feisty challenger Michelle Ostrelich met head to head in a debate to see which can better serve the constituents of the 49th Senate district.
The two may have been just a few feet apart at the debate table but they were miles apart in their positions on most of the issues discussed during the evening. This was the second of two debates held Oct. 30 in the Hilton Garden Inn in Clifton Park was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Saratoga County.
From beginning to end the two butted heads over campaign statements, legislative records, positions they have taken, and who would best represent district residents for the next two years.
Tedisco, 68, R-Glenville, is known to be a scrapper. A Schenectady native who played hardnosed basketball for Bishop Gibbons High School and Union College he revels in the confrontations rather than the backslapping that goes along with politics.
He will appear on next Tuesday’s ballot on the Republican, Conservative, Independent, and Reform party lines.
Ostrelich, 46, is nobody’s wallflower. Representative of today’s women she is smart, articulate, with a wiry innate strength that clearly announces she will not be pushed around. She gave no inch to Tedisco. She’s a wife, a mom, and a gun owner.
On Election Day she will have the Democratic, Working Families and Women’s Equality party lines.
In her opening statement, Ostrelich said she was running for office because she had a vision. She wants to see the state’s public school fully funded, wants to see parents able to take sick kids to the doctor, wants clean air and water, and jobs that pay a living wage.
Thanks to his many years in the Assembly Tedisco was able to take a familial approach with the audience saying they knew the other’s values because they had interacted so much.
The issues debated Tuesday were posed to the candidates by audience members. They included the state tax cap, health care, reproductive rights, guns, education, and term limits.
When a question seeking the candidates’ positions on the Reproductive Health Act and the Comprehensive Contraceptive Coverage Act was posed, Ostrelich said the two acts were very important to her. She wants her two daughters to have all access to family planning. So they can make their own choices, live their lives fully and succeed.
“I’m pro-choice and always have been and have supported Planned Parenthood most of my adult life,” she said. “The Comprehensive Contraceptive Coverage Act covers contraception. That’s a no-brainer. Sen. Tedisco has taken the opposite [view] his entire political career.”
In his turn, Tedisco said he supports reproductive health
care but the bill is not about that. This bill, Tedisco said, would add to abortion codification.
“This bill makes it unsafe for the mother,” he said. “It allows non-professionals non-trained medial people, non-doctors to do abortions. We’re supposed to be problem solvers. How about putting money into education programs?”
On the issue of the state’s Property Tax Cap Act, Tedisco read from his endorsement in a local newspaper and noted that he had stood up to former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to get it passed.
“It has saved the people of the 49th Senate District $344 million over the years,” he said. “It’s nice to talk the talk but it’s more important to have the facts.”
Ostrelich wants to see the act revisited.
“It penalizes successful communities,” she said. “A number of leaders in the district explained to me that it affects their town budgets. If your county is growing and you have more businesses you have to go for a vote to override the cap.”
On the issue of protecting the pre-existing conditions clause of the Affordable Care Act, Tedisco said the government program was not working because young, healthy adults would rather pay the $600 opt-out fee than get a health care policy.
“We need competition across state lines, health care savings accounts, tort reform, and best practices,” he said.
Ostrelich agreed the ACA may be broken but labeled Tedisco’s fixes as band-aids. It’s not the holistic fix we need, she said.
In a rebuttal, Tedisco noted that nothing is free.
“Vermont went to single payer and it put plenty of holes in their state budget. California refuses to go to it. It’s a failure,” he said
In her own rebuttal, Ostrelich said she was not saying that health care would be free.
“We’re paying for it now in our co-pays and $10 hospital band- aids,” she said. “It gives us insurance. Mr. Tedisco did nothing on health care. Health care is the number one reason families are filing for bankruptcy.”
On the issue of enacting a law on the proper way of storing guns, the Safe Storage Act, Ostrelich said the act will save lives.
Tedisco wants to see the laws that are on the books better enforced.
When questioned on their positions on the Child Victim’s Act, Ostrelich she supports it. She noted that Tedisco promised he’d help pass it if it made it to the floor of the Senate and then reneged on his promise and blocked it.
Tedisco in his turn told Ostrelich she was entitled to her own opinion but not her own set of facts and disputed her statement. Reading from the newspaper editorial for the fourth time he noted that it said Tedisco was on the right side of the issue.
“It didn’t come out of committee because it wasn’t the best bill,” he said. “I want to eliminate the statute of limitations.”