Candidate Martucci: 'Senator Metzger and I could not be further apart'

State Senator Metzger’s opinion piece that appeared in the March 6th edition of The Warwick Advertiser is long on rationalizations and excuses and short on accepting responsibility for her vote on the reckless bail reform bill that has placed so many citizens and their families in danger.

Jen Metzger blames the process by which “Bail Elimination,” a policy issue, was placed into the state budget bill last April. She argues that she had to vote for it in order to achieve other budget priorities.

What she fails to mention is that she and 24 other Democrats, aligned with radical progressive interests out of New York City, actually sponsored legislation three months earlier that was known as the Bail Elimination Act 2019 (S.2101-a). That proposed legislation was used as the template for the budget language that eventually eliminated bail for criminals charged with a wide variety of crimes.

Now that Senator Metzger is under fire by the public, she is finally talking to district attorneys and law enforcement. She claims that when she speaks with these officials, nearly all of them agree that the system that we had before was “fundamentally flawed” and “not working.”

Those comments are clearly being taken out of context and have nothing to do with eliminating bail. In fact, Orange County Sheriff Carl Dubois reported to a crowd of hundreds at my campaign announcement in January that Senator Metzger has never contacted him to discuss these important changes.

Law enforcement, prosecutors and everyday citizens alike did not want what we ended up with where recently, a high-risk level three sex offender in New Windsor unlawfully entered a pre-school playground filled with children and was released with just an appearance ticket.

Metzger has a history of being reckless with her votes. Whether she is supporting dangerous criminal justice reforms that put the rights of criminals ahead of our families, voting to give drivers licenses to undocumented aliens or voting to send $12 million of financial aid to Yonkers City Schools while schools in her senate district are owed millions from the state – Metzger has demonstrated that she is consistently on the wrong side of the issues.

As the former president of the New York School Bus Contractors Association, I was able to garner bipartisan support for legislation that protected children from predators, and those bills were passed into law on their own merit – not hidden in a budget bill to avoid public scrutiny.

Metzger claims to be opposed to hiding policy issues in the state budget, but was quick to praise the banning of plastic grocery store bags, another piece of legislation concealed in the budget.

Voters in the 42nd Senate District deserve a representative who will put their needs first and protect their families. Progressive social justice policies like Metzger’s dangerous bail elimination law only serve to further victimize law-abiding citizens while coddling criminals.

On that issue, and so many others, Senator Metzger and I could not be further apart.

Mike Martucci

Candidate, N.Y.S. Senate 42nd District