FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: HARCKHAM: MY BILL TO CUT OFF SCHOOL FUNDING OVER MASCOTS WASN’T MINE — AND MY DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK.
Hudson Valley-July 15...
State Senator Peter Harckham (SD 40) — with a straight face — is now claiming that his controversial bill to cut off funding to any New York State school with a sports mascot that could be construed as offensive has broken new ground in political crisis management: he’s preposterously claiming that the bill he introduced on July 9 (S-8708) isn’t really his legislation. There is a specific and longstanding process for introducing bills that requires detailed paperwork from a senator’s office.
Mr. Harckham, the prime sponsor of last year’s disastrous cashless bail law that put dangerous criminals right back on the street after being arrested, contributing to the dramatic increase in crime across the state, wrote in a Facebook post in the face of ferocious blowback from his constituents over his most recent legislation: “Last week, the Senate website errantly ascribed my name to a bill that would strip funding from schools that had mascots named after Native Americans. That is not my bill.” (Harckham’s bill actually went further than that; it included any race- or ethnicity-based school mascots, which would affect at least three high schools in his district: Mahopac High School (Indians, $32.1 million loss in aid); Valhalla High School (Vikings, $5.6 million), and Horace Greeley High School (Quakers, $9.5 million). Additional elementary schools also could have been targeted.
“Pete Harckham has demonstrated a shocking and repeated lack of judgement in the senate, and his my-dog-ate-my-homework excuse is as unacceptable as it is embarrassing,” said former two-time Westchester county executive and state senate candidate Rob Astorino. “Mr. Harckham’s bill has rightly outraged tens of thousands of his constituents desperate to get their children safely back into schools and resume some form of normalcy in their lives. Thousands of parents have lost their jobs because of Covid, and the loss of school funds would result in dramatic local tax increases that would literally break them economically. Mr. Harckham really screwed up here — just as he did with cashless bail — and he needs to own up to it.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Astorino called on Mr. Harckham to withdraw his legislation at a news conference outside of Valhalla High School. Moments before the news conference, Mr. Harckham amended the bill. Now, he’s saying the bill was never his.
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