It’s time for a woman and a Democrat to represent Manhattan’s East Side in the state Senate, says Liz Krueger, who hopes to unseat 16-term Republican incumbent Roy Goodman.
“The feedback I get on the streets and in our phone banks confirms to me that the district believes it’s time for a change,” Krueger said.
But Goodman, a liberal Republican who’s represented the primarily Democratic 26th Senate District since 1969, argues that it’s best to hold fast to what’s tried and true.
“When you’ve got a record as stellar as this one . . . that might be a good reason for keeping me another couple of years,” he said.
The race is one of the most difficult Goodman has faced – largely because of the long coattails the district’s growing Democratic majority is expected to give Vice President Al Gore and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Both Goodman and Krueger are fighting hard – bombarding voters with campaign literature and TV ads.
Goodman, 70-year-old heir to the Ex-Lax fortune, has raised $1.8 million to defend his seat.
Krueger, a 42-year-old government-policy analyst whose father, Harvey M. Krueger, is vice chairman of the Lehman Brothers investment-banking firm, has a $500,000 war chest.
Krueger has accused Goodman of failing to defend women’s rights.
She points to the Republican-controlled Senate’s June rejection of a bill that would have required insurance companies to pay for screening for breast and cervical cancer and osteoporosis – and notes that the male-dominated Senate later passed a bill mandating coverage of prostate exams.
“Goodman was one of the sponsors [of the breast-screening bill], but he couldn’t even get it out of committee,” she charged. “His history is he sponsors just about any bill imaginable, but then he’s not able to move it through his own Republican-controlled Senate.”
Not so, Goodman insists.
During his tenure in office, he said, 1,200 bills he sponsored became law – including several that protected a woman’s right to choose abortion.
The senator, leader of the Manhattan GOP, noted that he led the debate for the landmark law that legalized abortion in New York state. He also noted that he was the prime sponsor of legislation that protects a woman’s access to abortion clinics.
He said he’s also advocated Medicaid funding for low-income women to have abortions, sponsored legislation to require health-insurance companies to cover prescriptions for contraceptives, and vigorously opposed legislation requiring minors to notify their parents before being able to get an abortion.
In addition, Goodman says that this year he secured at least $275,000 in state funds for hospitals in New York City to focus on cancer that affects women in particular, like breast cancer.
He said Krueger has no right to criticize his record.
“It’s not that she doesn’t have much of a record, she doesn’t have any record,” he said.
The senator lists among his top accomplishments pushing for hate-crimes legislation, sponsoring the gun-control bill that became law this year; and playing a key role in passage of the Health Care Reform Act.
Krueger, in turn, cites her work with a number of nonprofit anti-poverty groups, including the New York City Food Bank, Community Food Resource Center, and the New York City Food Stamp Task Force.
If elected, Krueger said she’ll work for campaign-finance reform; to send small-time drug users to treatment instead of costly prisons; to free up cells for more serious criminals; to give patients the right to sue HMOs if they fail to provide coverage; and to build more affordable housing.