| It will be the race to watch. An incumbent who has been in Albany 30 years facing off against a slew of primary challengers. Steve Pigeon has a horse in the race (Tim Kennedy). Another candidate vows to run a left-of-center campaign similar to that of Dennis Kucinich (Michael Kuzma). Other possible candidates have been mentioned and some of those could still declare.
No matter how you slice it, it does not look good for Senator Bill Stachowski in the 58th Senate District.
 One candidate looking to replace Stachowski is Sean Cooney. Cooney, who officially declared this week, has nearly $12,000 cash on hand as he prepares his challenge to Stachowski.
Cooney, an attorney at Cantor, Lukasik, Dolce and Panepinto, is a native of Canandaigua. He attended high school at McQuaid Jesuit before heading to Saint Louis University for undergraduate studies. He returned to western New York to attend law school at the University at Buffalo, where he obtained his law degree.
He lives in Buffalo with his girlfriend Whitney.
Much like other candidates challenging incumbents, Cooney believes people have lost faith in state government and also believes reform is necessary.
"I am running because we have lost all trust in state government due to the pay to play and three men in a room system we currently have," he said. "Right now is an incredible opportunity for reform. We are enduring a fiscal crisis, a severe recession, a political uncertainty after the Senate coup last year. These crises have opened a window for reform that must not be squandered, but must be met with the election of legislators with a true commitment to meaningful reform and not just lip-service or gimmicks. As the only candidate not currently employed in this same broken system, I have the independence to champion these reforms, win the support of the WNY voters, but most of all restore our trust in State government."
One of the priorities high on Cooney's list is reform in Albany. The reasons reform is needed can be tied to our fiscal crisis, he says.
"We currently run our state with transactional governance based on a series of quid pro quos in both houses and the Governor's office," he said. "Reforming the way we govern is critical to solving our fiscal crisis and moving New York out of these tough economic times."
Some of the ideas he puts forth:
- Discuss having term limits, at the very least, for legislative leaders.
"We need to discuss having term limits at least for leadership positions within the legislature," he said.
- Supports empowering rank-and-file members to move bills out of committee and to the Senate floor for a vote.
- On campaign finance:
"We also need to focus on our political system," he said. "First we need end the pay to play, if you have financial dealings with the State of New York you should not per allowed to make contributions to state level elected officials. We also need to lower our contribution limits. There is no way working people and average citizens will ever be able to compete with donations of tens of thousands by wealthy interests. Also, we need to require the reporting of outside income including a mechanism of reporting who is hiring our elected officials even if under the protection of attorney-client privilege."
- He also supports a constitutional convention, with other reforms to address the dysfunctional ways of Albany.
"I support a constitutional convention and more importantly, one that is done in a way to accomplish actual reform," he said. "We can have a limited convention strictly on the framework of our system and that protects longstanding workers rights and minority classes from further discrimination. Better yet, we can make sure the convention is not the rats guarding the cheese and prevent current elected officials from sitting as delegates, provide some public financing of campaigns for the delegates, and hopefully reclaim our own State government so that we can legislate even more reform."
- His approach to addressing budget issues:
"The budget for our state should be a moral document, just like our family budgets. We have to prioritize what we need and spend our money accordingly. We must not make cuts that will cost us more in the long run and as a general rule we should not balance our budget our the backs of our children, the sick, or the elderly. This answer is difficult because we have such a secretive and undemocratic budget process right now, but we need to look first at our authorities and districts which do not provide vital services.
The important thing for 2010 is making sure we elect legislators committed to long term budget solutions. We are spending too much tax payer money without real results. We give away hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits to companies through our Industrial Development Agencies without ensuring that we are actually creating living wage jobs. Worse, we are leaving our working families to pay more than their share in property taxes. If local governments had the property tax credits we have given away over the last ten years saved, we would not have the budget deficit we have today."
One of the major issues in recent history is marriage equality. Stachowski was one of eight Democrats to vote against marriage equality late last year. For Cooney, it is an important issue. And it is an issue he supports.
"I support marriage equality because I support equal rights for all New Yorkers," he said. "To me, that obviously includes the nearly 2,500 rights that come with the institution of marriage. I have spoken on this issue a number of times and was deeply frustrated by last month's vote." |
