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New Yorkers Demand a Voters Majority in State Senate
“Golisano Majority” is Part of Historical Trend To Deny Voting Rights of Americans
Albany – Voters, advocates and faith leaders from around New York massed at the State Capitol today to demand that a “voters majority” rather than a “Golisano majority” be restored in the State Senate. The voters said that billionaire Thomas Golisano, who recently changed his official residence to Florida to avoid paying his fair share of New York State taxes, should not be allowed to use his influence to block reforms that residents of New York overwhelmingly voted for last November.
“The State Senate fight is not a game over whether which faction ends up with the power to control the chamber — it’s whether when the people voted for change in November, that vote will count,” said Veronica Horne, a member of the board of Citizen Action’s Capital District chapter. “Since the beginning of our republic, one group after another, from non-propertied whites, to African-Americans, to women, and to Native Americans, won the right to vote, often facing violence and intimidation to win that right. Now we face a different but also critical struggle: whether when we vote for change, big money interests like billionaire Tom Golisano can reverse the result with campaign cash.”
“The State Senate events have nothing to do with reform — they are the very opposite of reform,” said Father Kevin Bunger of East Broome Parishes in Broome County. “The coup didn’t just change leadership, it put a stop to the people’s agenda — affordable housing, control of health insurance rates, public funding of elections and many other critical issues that impact the lives of average New Yorkers. The Golisano Majority wants to replace the people’s agenda with the Golisano agenda.”
“Thomas Golisano made it absolutely clear that he doesn’t stand for reform when he changed his residency to Florida to avoid paying a fair share of taxes,” said Amy Fleming, coordinator of the Justice and Peace Resource Center in Binghamton, New York. “Tom Golisano didn’t seem to care that if the Legislature hadn’t increased taxes on wealthy people, there would have had to have been further cuts to human needs programs that low and moderate income New Yorkers so desperately need. We need a fair tax system to address that New York has the highest income gap between the rich and the poor in the nation. It is unacceptable that wealthy individuals like Mr. Golisano are able to reverse the will of the voters through the use of their campaign dollars.”
“There can’t be a better case study of why we need public financing of elections than the coup d’etat by the Golisano majority, because public financing addresses the pay-to-play system that allows corporations and the wealthy to try to buy the results they want in the State Legislature,” said Mark Manas, a member of the Long Island Progressive Coalition.
“The New York State Senate needs to support middle and lower income tenants, and not support billionaires,” said Allison Tupper, a rent regulated tenant in New York City and a member of the West Side Neighborhood Alliance. “The role of money in politics has gotten out of hand. If we don’t pass stronger rent laws, I’m at risk of being forced to move to New Jersey.”
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