Annual Summer Foundraiser for Senator James Skoufis, Washingtonville, NY. July 1st, 2026

Lots of that. We also would love to give a shout out to all our local committee chairs here and also of course our county chair Zach Constantine for all the work that you folks do. Of course it's been a big year this year including a fun local election year thanks to our thank you our guest of honor over here. So good luck to everybody. Thank you all of our county chairs again. You know just briefly as as I mentioned at the top of my remarks I am new here for my first three months. However I have very quickly learned the level of love and dedication that Senator Skoufis has for the community of Arkansas and of course it's the community that also embraced me as I know this is this community this region holds a very special place in this heart. Within my first two weeks on the team we received news that I'm sure many of you are aware of here as well. Orange County had been legally and stationally over distributing sales tax revenue to municipalities for a decade. I know all of us in attendance can understand how devastating that would be for all of our local communities here in Orange County and we had to take action immediately to ensure that those funds continue to be distributed correctly so our communities continue to receive those funds that are essential to services. It was in that instance that was truly introduced to the fire Orange County has in Senator Skoufis and our basic team. We worked immediately to get necessary legislation drafted supported by state legislative leadership and the governor to create a straightforward fix and we're sure it's there to not have that devastating impact for our communities. I tell you this not only to express how proud I am to be a part of the incredible team but to express how important it is to have leaders like Senator Skoufis in state government. In my short time in the office it's very evident the senator's leadership and his desire to truly deliver for Orange County is very infectious among our team. It's a standard within our office set up top by the senator and I'm also trying to set that example as well but it's immediately evident that it's infectious among our entire team to serve the community and to also do so with humility. That's something we take great pride in. The senator takes great pride in that. We are all aware of how polarized and divided our politics have become. Rhetoric over action has become far too common in our leadership across the country here in New York and everywhere we all feel that. We have a leader here in Senator Skoufis who delivers year in year out focused solely on making Orange County more affordable and meeting the needs of those we represent. We are proud to have the most bills passed in any office in the entire state senate. Once again team Skoufis. But to be clear effective leadership does take on that scale. It also takes what New York Focus has recently described the senator as being a pain in the ass sometimes. I can state with confidence though the senator will be no stone unturned in his pursuit of serving Orange County. I'm sure all of my colleagues on team Skoufis here can attest to that dedication whether it's late night emails, late night texts, new ideas that nobody else can think of besides James himself. So it goes without saying that we are all immensely excited and motivated to ensure that this pain in the ass sometimes but effective senator is re-elected to another term fighting for the people of Orange County. So without further ado it is my honor and my privilege to introduce my boss. Thank you so much as always for being here and I want to thank Jacob as he mentioned he's only several months into the role and has really grabbed the bull by the horns since day one. For those of you who don't know he came from and was a lifelong professionally speaking Antonio Delgado staffer. So he was looking for work three months ago and we plucked him from that team. I am really thrilled to have him here in Orange County. Give it up for Jacob. You can just wave your hands really quickly. These are the folks who usually go out to every day all the things you read about in the newspaper or on News 12 or Spectrum or on social media. None of it happens without all of them. We are an extremely high output office. We are an office with extremely high standards. We take a lot of pride in our work and that's that extends well beyond just me to every single person on our team. And so thank you to the best team in the New York State Senate. I want to thank all the party chairs and committee members and everyone who does the unclamorous work every single day every year every election. By the way we are working on the every year part to try and make that at least every two years getting rid of those odd year elections. We're in process which is why we have some local elections this year but in the trenches every single day for petitions to knocking on doors to talking to neighbors and without all of you I wouldn't be standing here and we wouldn't be able to win any of the elections. So thank you for what you do every day and I certainly want to thank the individual who allows me to do this more than anybody my wife Hillary who does some of the work. Albany deals with our five-year-olds often times without me but it certainly is a partner in every single way including professionally and politically so thank you Hillary. And I want to especially call out who was mentioned before about a couple of my legislative partners here in Albany Chris Ickes, Assemblyman and Senator Jameson. The officials here are incredible partners to a person and when we're all working as a team and the folks here we are always working as a team we're able to deliver the best results for all of our constituents. So I want to just remark on this is a special year as we all know 250 years as a country does not come around very frequently comes around every two and a half centuries and and it was a few years after in 1776 in 1787 when we had our constitutional convention taking place at the last meeting of the constitutional convention become a since famous scene for a set of folks Benjamin Franklin is walking out the doors final meeting everyone in this new country relatively new nation is on the edge of their seats waiting to see what are we going to be in these United States and a woman stops Benjamin Franklin coming out of that final meeting and stops him in the street and said well Dr. Franklin what are we what do we have a monarchy or a republic and Benjamin Franklin if you can keep it and and certainly you know that is that that is a a heavy quote that sits with a lot of us as we live through these incredibly tumultuous times in my mind however one of the key drivers of that that persistent never-ending can never be passive always active to maintain that republic is a government that responds to the needs of the many not the needs of the few and certainly not the needs of the one and I quoted in the same thought line Benjamin Franklin and Star Trek but it is true and that is at the core of our mission my mission and in our mission in our office is we try and be as responsive to the people in this community as humanly possible never putting forward and prioritizing the special interests the needs of the few or the one and always putting forward the interests of the many the public interest that is at the core of what we do every single day and so just in six months just in six months this year and I have I am I am proud to say as much energy today eight years into the senate 14 years into the state legislature as I did on my first day walking through those doors working with my colleagues and some of these things I haven't even announced to you so don't go broadcasting but in six months to underscore our commitment to this community and how hard we fight every single day to be that responsive state senate office we renewed in the face of a the state monitor at the orange county idea to ensure that literally just today news broke that the the orange county idea which brought a lawsuit against the monitor about seven months ago challenging his veto of the amazon mega warehouses 80 million dollar property tax break we won the monitor won and that veto was sustained yet our rockland and westchester counties for the past many years since the so-called the tappan zee bridge the new bridge was built they get a 20 resident discount starting in a couple months because of what we passed in the state budget after three years of trying and fighting orange county every resident's going to get a 20 discount at that call from suny orange you sit on the board you do incredible work suny orange uh community college about to be the only the first and only community college in all of new york state to be designated what's called a center of excellence which is an incredibly incredibly prestigious uh designation that uh that is going to bring in enormous sums of investment and money and a magnet for students who want to get into those their specialty will be ai in the workforce this is going to be transformative for suny orange we got that done the only community college in new york state certainly are always focused on very very local needs the town of wallkill uh it was going to be bankrupt come october literally they would run out of cash zero dollars and would have had to lay off over 40 police officers among dozens of other municipal employees and working with the other assembly partner who's unfortunately not here uh paula k we got four million dollars to make sure that they have zero layoffs in the town of wallkill in woodbury i know there are some woodbury people here a cherished property working with assemblyman peters a cherished property that people were very fearful was going to be bought and redeveloped is instead saved and going to be readapted into a new town hall which they have been looking for for decades four million dollars that we worked on to bring back home and make sure that woodbury is taken care of we passed as jacob mentioned again the most number of bills of any state senate office this year which we usually do just about almost every year some of those are very local bills we talked about working with county legislators like jenny scott and others they're doing a fantastic job by our majority in the orange county legislature working with them making sure that we fix a problem that's been going on for literally almost 20 years i think almost two decades that came to light to make sure that every village town and city in this county do not have to repay repay back and forego millions of dollars in sales tax revenue we passed the bill we're fixing that to make sure that taxpayers are once again protected and i forget our i'm scanning the u.s our newest state i county legislator matt turnbull was a county legislator again a county legislator i hope forever a county legislator but certainly many of our bills also have a very statewide uh and uh significant impact i and you know i'll mention a couple um out of the 80 we passed of those 80 40 past both houses i one of them uh and people don't even realize this is an issue when someone affects them but and that is that if you have a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a mental health therapist in the state that you see and you leave the state to vacation to take a work trip or especially if quote if you're a student you go to college out of the state you have been legally barred it is illegal to have remote sessions virtual sessions or pick up the phone and have consultations by phone with your therapist that is based here in new york if you leave new york state crazy crazy and so you literally have college students tragically take their lives because they've had horrific incidents at college out of state and they can't even talk to their psychiatrist that is based here in new york we passed a bill this year to fix it the governor is going to sign it and that's going to literally save lives by uh here in this state especially amazing uh democratic elections commissioner louise vanderbark another bill it's actually an amendment uh we passed this year it's going to be on the ballot probably in 2028 we've got to pass these two times and then they go on the ballot uh but we had first passage this year assemblyman jacobson carries this uh in the senate assembly uh so some of you know i mentioned before uh we we started this move to to transition local town and county elections throughout new york from an odd year cycle to an even year cycle why two reasons one in many of these races in odd years you have 20 25 if that at most voter turnout you've got a lot of people who just aren't tuned in they're not paying attention to a supervisor's race unfortunately as much as they might be at these higher profile election seasons and so by moving these races to eat even years they're going to be tagged on with these higher profile affairs where you have especially in presidential years you have 75 80 voter turnout in places most places in orange county and now 75 80 percent of people will be selecting who their local leaders are as well but the issue was and by the way once we move all of these we're also going to save 100 million dollars or so every election cycle by not having to administer odd year elections but the catch is we have a so we moved all the ones we could but judicial races uh da's county clerks and some others we could not vote without a constitutional method so we passed that uh this year we're going to have second passage in the next couple of years and it'll be under ballot stay tuned but that is another example where again it's republicans you can keep it we want people voting in our elections we want to promote democracy and we want to protect taxpayers we do all those things and what fell through this legislation passed this year was a huge fight and it's a big deal republicans don't like it it's unfortunate and it shouldn't be a partisan thing and when I say republicans elected republicans don't like it you do polls and you do public polls most republican voters love this idea because they are physically responsible and want to save this money and so we're going to do that for them whether their elected leaders want it or not and they I'm a big believer subscriber into the value of the philosophy that most very very big companies and corporations and especially monopolies they can take care of themselves they don't need welfare from us and it really is amazing sometimes you look at these economic development professionals many of them I you know rail against social services and that's just sort of philosophically where they come from medicaid is bad and housing support is bad all these things are bad and welfare is bad they have no problem with welfare for enormous multi-billion dollar corporations that welfare is okay when it's coming from taxpayers to big businesses that don't need it and I am a believer that folks who do need help from government and it's not welfare it's good government there are small businesses who struggle to survive in this state and one of the bills that we passed I know some of our pharmacists are here in the room is you've got independent pharmacies closing all around the state why because you have these big drug companies who pay them literally at below cost to fill prescriptions the cost for them to fill a prescription is literally more than what they are reimbursed from commercial health plans not not medicaid not medicare commercial health plans and so we passed a bill this year it was a huge fight we were in this fight with them to make sure that they are reimbursed at least at minimum at cost not below cost so they can keep their doors open and they can continue serving all of our communities here in new york and so I want to in sum offer this I am proud of the fact even though sometimes it's I it is it is tiring and draining I am proud of the fact that I represent and we represent the most republican senate district held by a democrat in new york state and I'm proud of that fact yes it means we have elections every two years that we can never take for granted and that is why we do these events that is why we always have to raise money that is why we run a very vigorous campaign with all of your support uh every couple of years I'm proud of the fact because it means if only democrats supported me I could win we couldn't win there aren't enough democrats we're one good win if that was the case we're able to be successful because not only people in my party and many of our party although there are many non-democrats well I guess democrats are overwhelmingly I'm thankful supportive of me and the work that we do but so so so many non-democrats and even republicans thousands of them in the senate district are supportive and I am grateful for that support when someone comes to me and says there were a lot of lawn signs that just passed with Donald Trump and James Cook his signs on their lawns and they said that's crazy and I'm saying yeah maybe that is a little crazy I love hearing that because it means that people recognize that the work that we do is not just work for democrats when we're up in Albany it's work for our entire community and and that is something that we are proud of in my office that I am proud of and that we will always always always continue for as long as we're in office thank you for being here thank you for allowing me to do this work