On Wednesday, June 28, 2017 at 12:00pm, True Blue NY 53 will launch their campaign on the sidewalk outside the NY State Office Building, 301 E. Washington St., Syracuse.
Voters in the 53rd Senate District are asking Senator Dave Valesky to reunite with the Democratic caucus and help promote progressive legislation on a host of issues, from health care to school funding to voting reforms. Although a majority of State Senators were elected as Democrats, Valesky’s Independent Democratic Conference, or IDC, actively denies Democrats a majority and helps assure that Republicans continue to hold the key positions of Majority Leader and all the committee chairs.
The chairs, in turn, make sure that bill after bill that passed in the Assembly never comes up for a vote in the Senate. This has been the fate of the New York Health Act, the DREAM Act, important elections and ethics reforms, and fair allocation of public education funds, to name a few.
The effort to bring the IDC back into the Democratic fold has gone national. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and DNC Co-Chair Keith Ellison have all spoken out against the breakaway faction. Only six states currently have Democratic control of their governments, compared to 25 with Republican control, which has ramifications for redistricting, elections law, and many other policy issues.