By Steve Levy
With Election Day one week from now and early voting underway, people will make one of the most important decisions for our country as to who will be our next president. There are also congressional and state assembly seats up for grabs, which will determine which political party will be in power.
But one of the most important — and overlooked — aspects of this election is the opportunity to vote on two propositions, both of which will determine the direction of both Suffolk County and New York State.
After reviewing both propositions, I am urging voters to reject these awful bills. My reasons are explained below.
Proposition One
When even liberal Newsday comes out against Prop. 1, you know it must be bad. https://www.newsday.com/opinion/endorsements/new-york-state-constitution-proposition-one-election-2024-equal-rights-amendment-ijy7ye2r Kudos to the opinion board for one of its best editorials ever, which warns that Proposition One that will lead to judicial nightmares in New York State over the next several years.
This proposal was being sold as a way to enshrine abortion rights into the state Constitution. Those rights are already preserved by New York State law. What’s not being told by the proponents is that it also seeks to enshrine constitutional protection based on national origin, age, and gender identity.
Many legal scholars believe that the passage of this proposition, which will give protections for national origin, will thereby grant illegal immigrants a right to taxpayer benefits, as well as the right to vote.
Including the term “gender identity” in the proposal will give biological males the right to change in women’s locker rooms and to play in women’s sports.
Inclusion of the term “age” will give minors the ability to overrule the desires of their parents in many instances, including sterilization through sex change operations.
As Newsday notes, if age now becomes a protected class, does that mean there can no longer be a 55-and-over senior citizen complex?
If proponents want to pursue this agenda, let them do it through normal legislation without locking judges into providing these rights that make no sense whatsoever.
Proposition Two
This is a sound-good, feel-good proposition that talks about raising money for clean water and to build sewers.
But there is no need to raise the county sales tax to do this when the county is sitting on the greatest amount of reserves in its history – over $700 million left over from federal funding from the pandemic that can be used for environmental purposes.
The county can also reconfigure its present quarter-penny sales tax program to help pay for sewers and improving cesspools. That program already brings in over $100 million annually. So with all these reserves and the quarter-penny money flowing into the county, why do they have to raise our sales tax once again?
We support cleaning our environment, but the money is already there to do it. Proponents want this additional sales tax increase so that they can keep the reserves for more salaries, positions and programs. Our taxpayers are already overburdened. Enough is enough! Let’s clean the environment with the plentiful resources we already have on hand.