Rabbitt, Metzger share little common ground during 42nd Senate District debate

Oct. 24--MIDDLETOWN -- Annie Rabbitt and Jen Metzger offered voters a clear contrast in a 42nd Senate District debate on Tuesday night, disagreeing on abortion rights, single-payer health care, campaign finance reform and virtually every other topic.

Fielding questions on stage for an hour at Middletown High School, the two candidates running to succeed Sen. John Bonacic were at odds from the first question, about whether the state should revoke permits for the new Competitive Power Ventures power plant in Wawayanda and how the region would replace its electricity once Westchester County's Indian Point nuclear power plant closes.

Metzger, a Democratic Rosendale councilwoman and director of the nonprofit Citizens for Local Power, had renewed her call to revoke the permits earlier that day and repeated that position at the debate, arguing that a recent corruption case involving the plant had "thrown open to question" the permitting process.

She argued the state must move more quickly to renewable energy and won't meet its goals for doing so if fossil-fuel plants keep opening.

"We can make the shift if we're willing to roll up our sleeves and work," she said.

Rabbitt, the Republican Orange County clerk and a former assemblywoman, said she would support holding hearings to investigate whether any corruption occurred in the plant's permitting. But she argued the plant should remain open in the meantime, and defended its value as an energy source.

"Where will that energy come from?" she asked. "It has to come from the plant."

Rabbitt also said she supports reconsidering the state's ban on natural-gas fracking, prompting some applause and some hisses from the audience. She argued the state made the decision with too little consideration of possible economic benefits, and should have held hearings.

"I am 100 percent, categorically against fracking," Metzger replied, winning applause. She said the drilling method has a huge, negative impact on health and the environment, and New York made the right decision to ban it.

Rabbitt won applause next by saying she would vote against allowing the children of undocumented immigrants who graduate from New York high schools to apply for the state's college-tuition aid program. She cast that longstanding proposal, known as the Dream Act, as an affront to other New Yorkers struggling to afford college.

Metzger said she supported that bill because she thinks everyone should have a chance to meet their potential and be a productive member of society.

She later spoke in support of the New York Health Act, a bill that would establish a single-payer, public health insurance system in New York. She said that rising health care and insurance costs force New Yorkers to forgo doctor's visits and medicine, drive up property taxes and hold down wages, since employers can't afford pay increases if benefits costs are surging.

"It's at a point right now where we need viable solutions," she said.

Rabbitt opposed the idea, saying "one more government-controlled program won't work." She said the state should focus instead on helping what she said were 5 percent of New Yorkers without health insurance, perhaps through tax-deferred savings accounts they could use to pay medical costs.

On abortion, Rabbitt said she was proudly pro-life, and would sponsor again a past bill that would have required women to wait 24 hours and undergo counseling before getting an abortion.

Metzger said she was firmly pro-choice and concerned that the new Supreme Court majority will erode abortion rights. She strongly supports the Reproductive Health Act, a bill that would enshrine the Roe v. Wade decision in state law.

Rabbitt opposed legalizing recreational marijuana use and called it a "gateway to stronger drugs," prompting audience laughter and some approving applause. Metzger supported legalization for multiple reasons and said there was "zero empirical evidence marijuana is a gateway."

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