Paul Szmal: And good morning, welcome to FLX Morning for this Wednesday, February the 12th, it is 739. We're going to get right into it. We're joined by Assemblyman John Lamondis online this morning. Assemblyman, good morning, how are you, sir?
John Lemondes: I'm great, thank you for having me. And I know one of the things that is top of mind for you right now, in addition to the budget, which we'll get to in a minute, is the special election to fill the seat that is being vacated by Elise Stefanikou, who is going to be the United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
Paul Szmal: Yes, so there's a lot to that. And it looks like, number one, a huge Republican victory was achieved the other day by stopping the bill that the governor wanted to pass, which would have enabled her to wait until the next general election. What that would achieve would be, and the reason we didn't like it was, it would leave that seat uncovered for potentially 10 months. And what people don't understand, and what I want to make sure everybody that is listening understands is, one of the things that elected representatives do is they bring grants home. They bring state and local, they bring state grants home, they bring federal grants home, and if there's nobody sitting in the seat to do that, because the staff doesn't stay there either if the person is gone, if there's nobody there to do that, that electorate misses out on that cycle.
And so you're looking at a part of the state that is already significantly underserved with respect to all of the challenges that our rural areas have in New York, and leaving them unattended, unrepresented for such a long period of time, we just thought it was a very, very poor thing to do, politically driven by, from our perspective, the desire of the left to simply have one less seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, encumbered by a Republican, and the longer they could keep that seat empty, the better off for them. And we obviously disagreed with that, and I think that the governor, with her party, and Carl Hastie, made a good decision by pulling that bill.
John Lemondes: So this didn't come to a vote or didn't come to a fight on the Assembly or State Senate floors then?
Paul Szmal: No, it did not.
John Lemondes: Okay. So that means the special election then would be, what, in how many days from now?
Paul Szmal: Well, she hasn't resigned yet, and so I think it's triggered, excuse me, by current law, it's triggered by the date of resignation, and so the election would occur, I think the governor has 10 days to declare it, and then 80 to 90 days to actually fill the seat in the special.
John Lemondes: Is there somebody that your group has in mind as a potential candidate to fill that seat?
Paul Szmal: There are several people vying for it, I have no idea who will actually, who would actually come out on top. I'm sure, you know, for the left, I'm sure they do as well. You know, the bottom line for us is, we think we're going to win that seat, but nonetheless, the principle of the matter is, let's say a Democrat won it, and this bill was passed, it would still be empty and vacant for potentially as long as 10 months. And so that's a long period of time to leave a huge swath of New York State unrepresented federally.
John Lemondes: Talking with Assemblyman John Lamondis here on FLX Morning, how goes the budgetary process in Albany?
Paul Szmal: Okay, so, I'm glad you asked. My opinion on the New York State budget hasn't changed since I've been elected. This is the beginning of my third term. Every year, the budget has increased to an unsustainable level, and I really honestly don't know what is in the water that the left is drinking, because this is completely unsustainable. As you know, from 21, 22, 23, New York was the highest outmigrating state in the nation with respect to population loss. We expect when we have the numbers for 24, which will be soon, over the next month or so, month or two months, that that trend will be the same, that in 2024, New York will again be the fourth, will be the largest outmigrating state in the nation for the fourth consecutive year in a row.
No matter how you look at that, that is really, really bad. That means people are running away as fast as they can. Every time somebody runs away, and they are of working age, you're losing qualified workers, you're making it harder for existing businesses to hire people to backfill them, and you're losing tax base. Every time somebody leaves, that tax base gets smaller. What are you going to do? Are you going to raise taxes on everybody else? That's what's been happening. Look at the price of utilities here. People can't afford to turn their lights on. You have all of the left appointees from all of the energy organizations standing up and talking about in the budget hearings, we have to meet the mandates of the CLCPA. I want one of them to look themselves in the mirror and actually say, wow, this is stupid. We shouldn't be advocating this because people shouldn't be paying $250 a week for electricity or whatever they're paying, because both commercial and residential rate payers are egregiously overcharged in comparison to the cost of energy in other states.
John Lemondes: How do you balance the concept of trying to trim the state budget and yet making sure that the constituents in your district are getting what it is they're looking for?
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that's the million-dollar question, right? Depending on how you look at that, there's no way to get everybody, every organization, what they need. There are huge political aspects to this, too, where Republican bills are held in committee by the Democrats. They won't let them advance. For example, I have been trying to get opioid treatment money for Auburn, New York, for now four years. Every time a bill is held in committee, it's killed for two years. That particular bill was originally submitted by my predecessor so that the left has killed a bill that would provide the money and funds for something that's drastically needed in the community, now going on six to eight years. These are the games that are played by the left, and everybody is hurt by that.
To answer your question directly, we have to break the supermajority. I hope New Yorkers look at what happened nationally and understand the progress that the president has made in such a short period of time. We've shut down the border. We're catching the illegals, especially those that have committed heinous crimes, and expelling them and getting them out of here. A country with no borders is no country. I think I'll have that debate with anybody at any time.
John Lemondes: Assemblyman John Lamond is joining us here on FLX Morning. What's the next step in the budget process, John?
Paul Szmal: We have to finish all the hearings, and there were some very, very long ones yesterday. I think, as you know, all of the horse trading is ongoing and will continue right up until the budget is passed. What I hope to see is a sensible budget, not one that is continually bloated higher than it was the year before with fewer people. I would love for the press to be able to see the people coming into our offices showing us how badly they're hurting with respect to providing services and necessary things for our communities because of what's happening with the budget in our state.
One of them is our librarians at our library system. We put a ton of money into our libraries, but it's not enough. Those are bellwether pieces, cornerstones of every single community, in my opinion. I mean, libraries do a million functions, and we want to be able to fund them. We want to be able to keep them with open doors. We want them to be able to make improvements so they're safe, et cetera, et cetera. This story is all too familiar with many different types of organizations all across the state.
John Lemondes: Assemblyman Lamondis, thank you very much for joining us this morning. We appreciate your candor and reflection on what's happening in Albany right now.
Paul Szmal: Hey, thank you very much. I appreciate the time. Have a wonderful day.
John Lemondes: All right. It is 749. It's FLX morning. Thank you. Thank you.
