Zephyr Teachout Endorses Dan Egan for Albany County Executive
Channel: Dan Egan
Date: 2015-06-21

Friends,
I am writing to endorse Dan Egan for Albany County Executive.
Dan is a serious public servant and, if you elect him, will be a fair, just, open, and progressive County Executive.  We share a commitment to clean elections, representative government, thoughtful consideration of real issues and an end to an insider political culture which has been hurting New York State.  Dan has a record of bringing positive ideas to government.  He served for 27 years in the State Department of Health, starting programs like New York State's first gleaning program, which delivers farm-fresh produce to soup kitchens and homeless shelters across the state.  On the Albany School Board, Dan fought for years against the corporate takeover of public education.  He is a clear, dedicated public servant - sometimes working behind the scenes, sometimes out in front, but always, always putting New Yorkers and their concerns first.
I am a traditional, populist, progressive Democrat.  I believe in public education and public infrastructure.  I am fortunate to endorse someone who understands - and represents - what government should be.  But my endorsement in this race is also about what government should not be. 
I am glad Dan McCoy has recently come out against bomb trains. However, there are several things that concern me about McCoy’s tenure:
He has sought and received the endorsement of the Conservative Party, which is committed to obstructing progress and which is opposed to the basic rights of LGBT New Yorkers;
He headed up a redistricting process which disenfranchised minority voters, and which was overturned by a Federal court for violating the Voting Rights Act. District Court Judge Lawrence Kahn wrote of the proposal: ”With rare exceptions, there is not yet an equal, fair opportunity for minority-preferred candidates to be elected on a county level, absent special circumstances."  After being censured for the proposal, McCoy then went to the mat to defend it, costing Albany County potentially millions of dollars in lawsuit damages;
He has resisted demands for transparency around, among other things, the hiring of investigators who serve unclear roles in County government;
During his tenure, the County has repeatedly hired his close friends and family for County jobs, which Albany County could not afford, being under financial pressure. In 2012, for example, McCoy's transition team director, Brad Fischer, got a job that was initially intended to fulfill a different role, and his brother got a job in a newly created position in the sheriff's department;
He picked Thomas Marcelle for County Attorney, a former Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative national organization that describes itself as providing "resources that will keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel through the legal defense of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage and the family."  In plain English, the now-County-Attorney was Senior Counsel to an anti-LGBT hate group;
He took $10,000 in campaign contributions from tobacco industry lobbyists and retailers, and then vetoed a countywide ban on tobacco sales in pharmacies;
He has failed to take the County ethics board seriously, giving it a budget of less than $1,000. 
No politician is perfect. I don’t put this out to nitpick, but rather to illustrate a consistent and troubling pattern of serving an insider circle, instead of the public, and of serving political interests, instead of basic Democratic principles. We need a clean slate of public officials. Dan Egan is part of a new, exciting, statewide wave of candidates who are taking on the old systems of entrenched cronyism. We do not have to accept those in power just because they are in power.
There are many things we must do about our culture of corruption in New York, including public financing of elections; but the greatest protection against corruption is elections. 
Political leaders make decisions that impact peoples' lives, day in and day out.  We lose opportunities for change, and for a flourishing public life, every time we choose to back insiders.
I hope you will join me in supporting a challenge to entrenched power in Albany County, by contributing your money, your time and whatever else you can, along with your vote, for Dan Egan.  We've got work to do, and a serious public servant to help us get it done.
 
Thank you,
Zephyr Teachout