SHERBURNE – The Chenango County Democratic Committee’s pick for the 51st Senate District is honing in on corruption and education funding as the top priorities in his campaign.
In a recent interview with The Evening Sun, Democratic Senate hopeful Jermaine Bagnall-Graham – a Sherburne resident – said many legislators in Albany are “tone-deaf” when it comes to the peoples’ demands to address political corruption in the state capital.
“Corruption has been going on a long time. About 97 percent of New Yorkers said corruption is at the top of their list for things they would like to see addressed before the end of the session,” Bagnall-Graham said, referencing a Siena research poll that was compiled last month. “It’s looking like that’s not going to happen.”
Bagnall-Graham officially kicked off his campaign in May with an agenda to fight political corruption by limiting or banning outside income of state legislators, stripping convicted elected officials of their pensions, limiting campaign contributions to end special interest financing, and implementing stricter oversight of governmental contracts and pork barrel spending.
“I’m running to fight bad policy and corruption,” he added. “We have to end some of these policies. We have to end corruption. We have to address the issues and pass ethics reform. We have to look at closing the LLC loophole and stop the ‘pay to play’ process. You’re elected to serve the people, not to serve yourself.”
On the issue of education, Bagnall-Graham says schools have been critically underfunded for a long time. Despite the passing of the 2016-2017 state budget in April – which does away with the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) that’s cut into school budgets for the last six years – Bagnall-Graham insists that it’s not enough, especially for rural districts.
“Schools are still playing catch up. When you talk about 2 percent tax cap for schools in this area versus a 2 percent tax cap for wealthier districts like those in Long Island, the difference is huge. Districts in our area are being severely underfunded.”
