State Senate District 37: Latimer Focuses on Ethics, Education in Re-election Bid
State Sen. George Latimer has experienced Albany as a part of the Democratic majority in the Assembly for eight years and from the minority side the past four years in the Senate.
Now he not only needs the cooperation from voters in the 37th Senate District but in other areas of the state as well.
“I want to see if I can have a stronger impact on my third term than my first two terms,” said Latimer, 62, who appears on the Democratic, Working Families and Women’s Equality lines in his re-election bid against Republican challenger Julie Killian.
“You can speak up, you can co-sponsor bills, you can bring things up about the way Albany works. Either you’re in the majority club or you’re not, and if you’re not in the majority club, you can’t have any significant ability to shape policy, so I’m hopeful that because of the desire for change that is generally in the air that we’ll get the opportunity to have a new majority.”
Latimer’s top three issues that need to be addressed are familiar ones: reforming state government, education and property taxes.
While he supports term limits, Latimer said that isn’t enough to stop breeding corruption. In fact, some relatively inexperienced lawmakers have been ensnared in scandal, he said.
“The real problem is that it would just morph itself in a different way,” said Latimer referring to relying on term limits to weed out corruption. “The real problem is power and money and the escalation of power of money is what led to (former Senate Majority Leader Dean) Skelos and (former Assembly Speaker Sheldon) Silver.”
Term limits must be pursued in connection with restrictions on how much a candidate can receive from an individual. The state currently allows for individual donations of up to $55,000 for a candidate for statewide office and $11,000 for a state senator, which is excessive and more than what a congressional candidate can receive.
Latimer also supports campaign finance reform that would call for a one-to-one match between private and state funds along with limiting how much a candidate can spend on a race.
Decentralizing power for the leaders must also be considered, he said. Latimer said he has a stronger case for ethics reform in the Senate with the Republicans in control.
“(Killian) is not going to be able to take power away from John Flanagan,” Latimer said. “So I’m in a much better position as the candidate whose party is out of power to press for that type of reform.”
There has been plenty of angst for many Westchester school officials who are unable to fully tap into community’s resource. Forcing some of the same mandates on high-achieving districts is unnecessary, he said.
“We spend an awful lot of money (on education),” Latimer said. “Some districts are getting the results, some district’s are not. Focus on the places that are not.”
He wants to fight for a change in the state funding formula that puts Westchester in a different category than Long Island, but said that is unlikely to occur if Senate Republicans remain in power.
Latimer said the standardized tests should be for fifth- and eighth-graders, students who are moving on to middle school and high school, respectively, as well as for Regents level courses, but does not believe the current exams should be given to children as young as third grade.
A major part of relieving residents of the property tax burden rests in meaningful mandate relief. The biggest piece would be moving the state’s half of the Medicaid funding to the state, rather than splitting it with the county, Latimer said.
However, that won’t happen unless suburban and upstate legislators reach a creative agreement with the state legislature’s New York City contingent whose constituents aren’t faced with the same property tax pressures, he said.
Without mandate relief, there are few additional options.
“The only (other) way to support lower taxes is to have fewer services,” Latimer said. “I’m not advocating that.”
Latimer said that he’s proud of his record on the environment. He supports more of a focus and investment on renewable energy with a large piece of that being solar energy. However, with solar still expensive, the state must look to invest and research other renewable sources to meet its energy needs.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/