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Volume XX • Number 41 • October 3, 2013 •
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Local pols decry federal shutdown By HAYDEE CAMACHO Local elected officials wasted no time in blasting Republicans after Congress missed a midnight deadline resulting in the first government shutdown in 17 years. On Tuesday, military personnel and other essential federal employees went to work without pay and other workers stayed home for an indefinite furlough. Social Security benefits are still being paid and the mail will still be delivered. Federal air traffic controllers will remain on the job and airport screeners will continue screening passengers through security checkpoints. Federal inspectors continue enforcing safety rules. The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are closed. “I wish I could say I was surprised that Republicans were so determined to shut down the government, but this is just more of the same from a party that has no vision for the country other than drive our economy off the cliff and destroy our ability to govern effectively,” said Congressman Elliot Engel, Senior Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Shame on them; this is no way to run a government.” He also criticized Republicans for the impact the government shutdown will have on the military. “For a party that claims to have a strong record on supporting our men and women in uniform, this callous disregard for our veterans is particularly disturbing,” he said. Last week Engel defended the Affordable Care Act on the House floor. He said the Republicans should join Democrats in improving the ACA instead of shutting down the government. “It is time for Republicans to accept the reality that the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land,” he said. “It was passed by a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate, signed into law by President Obama, and has been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court.” Congressman José E. Serrano
decried the deeply destructive and divisive tactics in which the party that lost an election about Obamacare tries to force their views on the rest of the nation. I am shocked by the damage they are willing to do to the government functions, to financial markets’ confidence and
to our system of government in pursuit of their unrealistic goal of ending Obamacare.” He also said government had “reached a new low.” Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowtiz commented that “right wing radicals of the Tea Party are running the Republican Party.”
He denounced them as a “reckless and irresponsible gang of ideologues that has placed their extremist political agenda over the needs of the United States of America.” “Both the House and the Senate voted to enact Obamacare. The President signed it into law. They
lost. The people won. And the President was re-elected. Now they want to undo their loss by shutting down government. I urge the President and the Democrats to shut them down and not give an inch in the battle to protect health care reform,” he said.
Suppose they held an election and nobody came?
Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz chats with not-so-busy election inspectors at P.S. 81 on Tuesday during a runoff election for the post of New York City public advocate, a watchdog position with little power—except that of being next in line to the mayor. The runoff election between two candidates, City Councilwoman Letitia James and state Senator Daniel Squadron, neither of whom attained the needed 40 percent in the general election, cost $13 million, more than six times the budget for the public advocate position itself. Fewer than 200 voters had turned out by 12:30 in the afternoon at P.S. 81, a site Dinowitz said generally has second-highest turnout in the area. According to election inspector Patricia Stone, working the typical 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. shift, said that things start to get a little busier at around 3 p.m. “This is the first time ever we’ve had a runoff just for public advocate—it’s almost like a special election, which tends to have very poor turnout,” Dinowitz said, pointing out that the lack of awareness is unfortunate because “after all, if something happens to the mayor, the public advocate becomes mayor, at least temporarily.” Both have their share of good endorsements, he said, but James has “more organizational support” and Squadron has “more money.” The old-fashioned lever voting booths were on the job, rather than the new scanning devices. While the vote tallies can be generated immediately with these, “with the new machines, it takes hours,” Dinowitz said. “Last November, this poll had five scanning machines. At different times, four of them were down. So as a result, there were lines going all over the place.” Regardless of how few voters turned out, election coordinator Merritt G. Claude explained that there needs to be both a Democrat and a Republican election coordinator at each site. Both need to turn in a log, so each visitor must be recorded on both sheets.