See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Max Jaeger
Brooklyn Daily
This one got heated.
Candidates for Bay Ridge’s state senate seat got out of their chairs and into each others faces as they squared off over what rights New York should extend to non-citizens at the candidates’ second debate on Oct. 1 at the Bay Ridge Council on Aging.
State Sen. Martin Golden (R–Bay Ridge) asked Democratic challenger James Kemmerer if he would extend state-level voting rights to non-citizens. Kemmerer responded that he would not support a Bronx lawmaker’s bill that included such a provision, but Golden pounced, charging that Kemmerer was evading the question.
“Why can’t you answer the question?” Golden said. “Would you vote for non-citizens—”
“The measure you’re describing is in that bill, and I wouldn’t vote for that bill,” Kemmerer interjected. “No, no. I will say no a hundred times if it makes you feel better. No.”
The curve-ball question came from Golden himself, not the moderator. Both candidates were allowed to ask one question of each other at the end of the debate.
Kemmerer’s response arguably did not answer the exact question that Golden posed, but later Kemmerer flatly told this paper he would no support extending voting rights to non-citizens.
“People are trying to open up a conversation, but a conversation is very different than a law,” Kemmerer said. “[Golden] posed that question to make me look like a far-left liberal but that’s not the case.”
And that wasn’t the only time immigration came up at the morning match-up. Golden and Kemmerer also staked out their positions on the oft-proposed, but never realized New York State Dream Act, which would open college tuition assistance to low-income non-citizens. The candidates’ positions fell along familiar party lines.
“I will tell you one thing, what we’re doing by supporting the Dream Act is hurting the grandchildren of the people in this room trying to get into college,” Golden said.
Kemmerer said the Dream Act would be an economic boon for New York — and the right thing to do in a state that has long been a beacon for immigrants.
“We want to keep the best and brightest in our state, because it keeps us economically competitive,” he said. “Our city is a city of immigrants, our country is a country of immigrants, and the last I checked, the Statue of Liberty was still in the harbor.”