The New York League of Conservation Voters has released its list of endorsements for the New York primary elections, which will take place September 9. Tri-State does not endorse, but has worked closely with three of the listed candidates in the past and highlights their stances on transportation here:
Michael McMahon, a Democrat running for the U.S. House of Representatives, has a long history of working on transportation issues as an NYC Councilperson for Staten Island. Recently, McMahon held a press conference in support of federal legislation to provide operating aid to transit agencies. He also supported NYC’s congestion pricing plan and was a key architect of the City’s environmentally sustainable Solid Waste Management Plan. McMahon has told the SI Advance that, if elected, he will seek membership on the House Transportation Committee and try to win federal funds for North and West Shore rail lines on Staten Island.
Ellen Jaffee, a State Assemblymember from Rockland County running for reelection, has been an active participant in the Tappan Zee Bridge/I-287 project development process, and has pushed the project team to be more open with stakeholders and members of the public. She also was a panelist at a TSTC symposium discussing how bus rapid transit could work on the Tappan Zee (see MTR # 558). Jaffee was the only state legislator from Rockland to vote for creating a panel to study congestion mitigation in New York City (MTR # 561). However, she opposed congestion pricing, and testified against it at the panel’s public hearings.
The League of Conservation Voters also endorsed for reelection State Sen. Martin Connor of Brooklyn, whose race is expected to be one of the tightest of the primaries. In the early part of this decade, Connor helped win an upgrade of the Gowanus Expressway carpool lanes to HOV-3 (cars need 3+ passengers to use the lane), speeding express bus service in that corridor (MTR # 358). He also opposed the proposed West Street tunnel in 2004 (MTR # 464). More recently, Connor was silent on congestion pricing, only coming out in support of it after it had been defeated. His opponent, Daniel Squadron, has been vocal about his support for congestion pricing and his anger at the State Legislature’s quashing of the plan.
Just to be 100% clear, this is not the NYLCV’s blog and we do not endorse.
Interested readers can visit NYLCV’s list of press releases to read about the rationale behind each endorsement.
How can you endorse McMahon over Steve Harrison in the NY13 Democratic primary? McMahon favors offshore drilling and Nuclear Power, while Harrison opposes these environmentally unsound energy sources.
Over Congestion pricing? Harrison was against the mayor’s congestion plan, but not necessarily all congestion plans. He was against it because he felt it was a regressive tax on those too poor to live in Manhattan or near a decent commute to it. The Congestion plan would also transfer pollution to areas closest to the Congestion zone because people would drive to and then park near the trains stations and bus stops adjacent to where the fees would begin to be collected.
Or could it be that the process was rigged against Harrison. Jon Del Giorno who has been campaigning for McMahon is on your board of directors and your policy director used to Domenic Recchia’s chief of staff (McMahon decided to run for this seat only after incumbent Vito Fossella choose not to run and no current elected Republican official decided to enter the race. For more than a year before he entered the race McMahon was undermining Harrison, who as the 2006 nominee did better than any Democrat since the Molinari took over the Island, by promoting Recchia’s candidacy over Harrison. Recchia, who represents Coney Island in the Council, did not live in the district and could not vote for himself. The former Recchia chief of staff donated money to Recchia’s campaign.).