Shrestha-Madden primary vote is less than a month away

The June 25 New York State Democratic primary is fast approaching. Early voting begins June 15.

Over the last 25 years, the candidate who won the Democratic primary in what is now the 103rd Assembly District — now including the northeast part of Ulster County down to New Paltz and Gardiner and the Dutchess County towns of Red Hook and Rhinebeck — has cruised to victory in the November general election.

The 32-day primary financial disclosure numbers for both Democratic candidates for the 103rd Assembly District were reported on March 24.

Challenger Gabi Madden outraised incumbent Sarahana Shrestha in total receipts, $200,360 to $180,499.

Shrestha, who in February received the support of the Ulster County Democratic Committee by a 19,624-to-8185 tally, was asked why she was running for the Assembly seat again.

“Everything in Albany moves at a slow pace, and to pass anything, you need to build consensus, you need to build buy-in, and that takes a lot of time,” she responded. “We also don’t want to get buy-in in a way that leaves the public out, so we also want to organize the public, which is to say that my staff and I did so much foundational work in the first one-and-a-half years, and we want to build on that groundwork for lots more that I can do in the coming years.”

Madden was asked what had inspired her to challenge Shrestha.

“Seeing a lack of advocacy, seeing a tremendous need and a lack of true service being provided to our constituency,” she replied. “I mean, from district-office constituent services lacking to advocacy in Albany lacking, to our libraries and non-profits unable to get in touch with their representatives even though they negotiate a budget annually on behalf of these entities. If you’re not in touch with them, if you’re not taking meetings from them, if you’re not even introduced to them, how can you negotiate a budget every year that impacts them? That doesn’t make sense to me at all.”

Where they stand: Interviews compiled from interviews conducted by reporter Rokosz Most

Both Gabi Madden and Sarahana Shrestha addressed six subjects central to their candidacies: WAMC Health, short-term rentals, Central Hudson, good-cause eviction, corporate donations, and socialism and communism. Here are their answers:

WAMC Health

Shrestha: HealthAlliance in specific is just one of the many hospitals that are causing problems in the state. Nearly 30 percent of hospitals in New York are in some sort of financial instability whether we talk about broken ways of funding our healthcare or levels of mismanagement or

lack of safe staffing and worker rights, unfortunately, these plague our hospitals all across the state. So we are looking for systemic solutions, and one of them is passing the New York Health Act, which is a broader stroke at just getting at the root problem of this private insurance mechanism that runs our healthcare system. I am a co-sponsor and it is our priority bill. It would save us billions of dollars. It would give people expanded, comprehensive healthcare with no network restrictions. It would give aging New Yorkers a long-term care plan. It would create opportunities for reducing property taxes, because localities would no longer have to pay their share of Medicaid.

Madden: So first and foremost, WMC has a certificate of need that hasn’t been fulfilled since they shut down because of Covid. That’s BS. When the state of emergency was rescinded in New York State, those beds should have been back online immediately. There should be fines issued on a daily basis that are so massive that WMC has no choice but to get those beds back online. Why are we not levying fines? Because the Department of Health is the one that issues and monitors the certificate of need for these healthcare facilities, if I was a state assemblyperson, I would be having press conferences outside WMC every single day until those fines got levied every single day at an outrageous amount so they would actually put the beds back online. I mean, sometimes that’s what it comes down to. It’s just being the advocate, being the watchdog for your constituents. You need someone like me that will come in and serve as that advocate. And it drives me nuts that we don’t have that right now.

Short-term rentals

Shrestha: My position has been the same from the beginning, which is that they should not replace homes that people need for living. And if people are trying to run them as a business, they should be treated as a business and have the same responsibilities as any other business would have. We are right now, in the remaining few weeks of the session, still making a push to pass the short-term rental bill that senator [Michelle] Hinchey introduced in the Senate, and assemblymember Pat Cahey carried it in the Assembly.

Madden: I think that any regulations should be based on each individual municipality. I like leaving the flexibility up to the individual towns, cities, villages, because I do think it’s going to vary based — you know — place to place, but I’m here to be a partner. So those towns and villages that do want to implement a program, I’m here to help connect them with the folks over at HCR so they can walk them through a model that’s going to be best for each individual municipality to roll out their own program. You can opt in, opt out to the program. You can cap the number that you actually allow. I think that that’s a good way to roll it out.

Central Hudson

Shrestha: We’re already paying so much to keep Central Hudson running, unless we remove the profit motive, there is just not going to be utility justice. Currently accounts that use high level of energy, they get various kinds of discounts and they actually end up paying less per kilowatt. Whereas people who use very little energy, they actually end up paying more for energy use because our rate structure is inverse. And if you sit down and think about if Central Hudson was a community institution, what should it do?

A bill senator Hinchey and I introduced, creates a new state power authority called the Hudson Valley Power Authority, which will be authorized to acquire Central Hudson through the power of eminent domain to address this. Because the Hudson Valley Power Authority is a state authority, it will be authorized to issue bonds at no cost to ratepayers or taxpayers. A cherry on top would be to have taxpayer buyin, but it doesn’t even need taxpayer money for the acquisition.
One of the things we want this authority to have is progressive green rates, which means that the less energy you use, the less you pay per kilowatt. If we design the correct rate structure, and this is totally viable it’s possible that ratepayers who use very little energy may not have to pay anything at all.

Madden: They have had so many rate-hike proposals throughout my tenure, just working in the state legislature. You know, one issue after the next, they’re not a trusted company. They shouldn’t be in business.
And I also kind of have an issue with Department of Public Service and the Public Service Commission that’s supposed to be this watchdog looking out for all of us consumers. Meanwhile, they’re allowing for these rate hikes to come through.

I love the concept of taking over and having a public utility option, but I don’t want to take over the Central Hudson infrastructure until they pay to get the changes and the upgrades made. I’ve looked at the rural co-op and the municipal co-op models as just starting points. I would go with the municipal co-op because I think the rural co-op doesn’t fit for this area. I really like the idea of re-regulating supply and hedging practices for our gas. So right now we have Department of Public Service that is this whole entity that’s designated to regulating utilities, but yet we don’t have any regulation on supply or hedging practices.

Good-cause eviction

Shrestha: Two reasons I was not happy with the version of the good-cause law that we passed. The language to opt out instead of opt in was something that, as one of the few tenant Assembly upstate representatives, I was personally leading the fight on. And, you know, upstate legislators were really divided on it because the truth is, most upstate legislators really don’t prioritize tenants.
But the Assembly leadership was good with opt out. The governor was not. So we lost that. Basically this was deflecting state responsibility onto local representatives that have very little power, to be honest.
I’m going to make the best effort to get places like Saugerties and Town of Ulster to opt in but it’s probably unlikely because at this local level of government, it’s hard to push through something where, you know, the legislators are hardly paid to do their job and they are also more vulnerable to attacks from landlords. Many are also landlords themselves.

Madden: I’m concerned by its actual effectiveness in Ulster and Dutchess due to its applicability on rentals with only ten units or less as well as allowable fluctuation on increases to rent prices within any good-cause solution. Good cause is just one of the many avenues I could see in addressing the housing crisis.
I don’t feel this majority downstate-pushed bill will be as impactful in combating the housing crisis here in the mid-Hudson Valley. One, we still need more housing stock. Two, we have many complexes with under ten units that it won’t even apply to. And three, it still allows for rent increases up to ten percent annually.

Corporate donations

Shrestha:: No. I do not take corporate donations. And the DSA does not take corporate money or any unvetted money. Other organizations that have any sort of foundation funding do not contribute to our campaign. Our campaign only takes donations from individuals, who then we vet, or from unions or from political action committees like Tenants PAC, which is a grassroots group that funds tenant-friendly candidates. But all of those are vetted sources of donations.

And if they are unvetted sources- a group that does not disclose what type of donation it takes but wants to make a donation to me, I don’t accept those. And all of DSA’s donations that they get are also publicly available on the BOE website. They’re all made by individuals.

Madden: Taking a contribution does not equate to voting a certain way or the position I take on legislation, or the legislation that I can introduce. At the end of the day, I answer to the constituents. It’s really a matter of, you take these funds in to win a campaign. It has nothing to do with a voting record or a legislative portfolio.
I realize that maybe the voters don’t feel that way and because I don’t have my own legislative voting record to point to, to say, Here are these initiatives that one of these corporations would have benefited from that I voted against. I understand why the voter kind of has a harder time understanding that. But my position on all this is that one does not equate to another.

On communism, on socialism

Shrestha: I’m a democratic socialist. The democratic part is very important, because I do not believe in weakened democracy. I want expanded democracy, so we’re not talking about a dictatorship of socialism. We’re talking about empowerment of every single person. Anybody who thinks I am too progressive for this district should run as a Republican, because this district is very progressive, and I represent its values correctly.
Before me or senator Hinchey, there was Maurice Hinchey, who’s one of the more progressive people to have represented a New York district, which is why I take issue with people characterizing my politics as not belonging to the district, because then, are we just forgetting Maurice Hinchey?

Madden: I think that when I see communism my heart stops a little bit. I mean, this is the United States. I think that we’ve done everything we can to defend ourselves from communism. So when I see something in the newspaper that says an event was co-hosted by this group, that group, and the Communists of the USA, Hudson Valley Chapter, and those are our state elected government reps, that’s a little concerning to me, to be honest.

We always want to support everyone having a stake in something rather than a small percentage of individuals having full control. And that’s the foundation of socialism. But then when you see socialism rolled out, it does quite the contrary. And if anything, I think it reduces competition. And I don’t think that it leads to the majority actually having a say and having a stake in their economy.

This year, whichever candidate clinches the primary nomination goes on to face Jack Hayes, chair of the conservative party in Ulster County running on the Republican party line. A republican last represented this seat sometime in the 1900’s.

The most significant change to the rules of electioneering involves the contribution of public matching funds available to all candidates who choose to augment their small donor contributions. Contributions up to $250 received from individuals who are state residents will see three levels of matching funds.

Receipts from the state comptroller show that Shrestha has so far benefited more than Madden from the public matching funds system, pulling in $161,232 over the same time period as Madden received $104,618.

Madden has benefited from a larger pool of large-amount individual donations, with the end result that she has outraised Shrestha by $20,000.

Madden has so far also spent nearly twice as much as Shrestha in the race for the primary nomination, $47,852 to $25,412.

Shrestha has received campaign contributions from 347 individual donors, while Madden received campaign contributions from 286 individual donors. She had 308 contributions of less than $100.

Madden received 137 individual donations of less than $100.

Madden has disputed that her donors will in any way shape her decision-making process as an Assembly member.

Shrestha has promised to avoid accepting contributions from “corporations, CEOs, corporate lobbyists, fossil-fuel polluters, real-estate developers and school and healthcare providers.” She does accept contributions from labor unions and political action committees.

Gabi Madden’s top ten contributors

$3,000 Joel Greenblatt, Port Washington, NY

$3,000 John Petry, Manhattan, NY

$3,000 Karen Petry, Manhattan, NY

$3,000 Rob Stavis, Larchmont, NY

$3,000 Amy Stavis, Larchmont, NY

$3,000 Amanda Eilian, Phoenix, AZ

$3,000 Jeremy Levine, Manhattan, NY

$3,000 Elisa Fishbein Greenbaum, West Hampton, NY

$3,000 Lizzie Tisch, Manhattan, NY

$3,000 Emma Bloomberg, Manhattan, NY

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