Meet the Candidate: James Skoufis Runs for New York State’s 42nd Senate District

Sen. James Skoufis (D-N.Y.) at his district office in Cornwall, N.Y., on June 19, 2023. Cara Ding/The Epoch Times

Over the past six years as a New York state senator, James Skoufis said he has punched above his weight to pass impactful laws and funnel taxpayer money home.

As a member of the Democratic Party in control of the state legislature, Skoufis said he has used his seat at the table to become one of the most productive lawmakers in the upper chamber, securing large pots of money for his home district at budget negotiations.

“Being in the majority is part of the puzzle, but the much bigger part of the puzzle is, while you are at the negotiating table, you’ve got to fight for it,” Skoufis recently told The Epoch Times.

“My leverage comes down to votes, to sentiment on other items that are being negotiated, and to my relationship with Senate leadership and other colleagues,” he said, adding that, if reelected, he would continue building on his effectiveness for district residents.

Skoufis faces Republican challenger and Monroe town councilwoman Dorey Houle in the November election. Timothy Mitts, a Monroe property investor, is running on the Conservative line.

The 42nd Senate District covers most of Orange County except Newburgh and Montgomery.

Born in Queens, Skoufis spent the first several years of his life in a public housing complex before moving with his family to suburban Woodbury.

“Both my mom and dad worked very hard to earn their way into the middle class,” he said. “I’m always interested in what I can do to provide the same opportunities to bring one’s family up.”

After graduating from high school, Skoufis followed his passion in government and pursued political science degrees at Georgetown Washington University and Columbia University.

While working at his first job in the private sector in New York City, Skoufis ran for Woodbury town board, and three years later, at 25, he ran for a longtime Republican Assembly seat and was elected the youngest lawmaker in the Democratic-controlled lower chamber.

Elected to a Senate Majority

Six years later, he eyed a longtime Republican Senate seat and became part of the blue wave in the fall of 2018 that flipped the upper chamber to Democratic control.

Building on his early child education work in the Assembly, where he secured funding for full-day kindergarten programs at two local school districts, Skoufis quickly set his eyes on expanding pre-kindergarten programs outside New York City.

“I made this my No. 1 budget priority about four years ago and began to organize my non-New York City colleagues and made it clear to the leadership that this was a demand,” he said.

On top of child development benefits, such early education programs also cut childcare costs and alleviate burdens of working- and middle-class families, according to Skoufis.

Since 2021, among other upstate schools, Skoufis has secured state funding for nearly 3,000 pre-kindergarten slots in Orange County schools through several budget negotiations.

He aims to bring pre-kindergarten programs to all school districts outside the Big Apple.

Skoufis said he has also focused on cutting “corporate welfare,” which he characterizes as sizable, unnecessary tax breaks to big businesses at the expense of taxpayers.

As the chairperson of the Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee, Skoufis examined tax benefits by industrial development agencies—a type of public benefit entity empowered to forgive large sums of property and sales taxes to lure new businesses—and recommended more state oversight over such entities.

Last year, Skoufis said he fought hard to enact a first-ever measure in the state budget of having a state monitor overseeing a local industrial development agency.

Opponents of the measure said the agency had enough state oversight already and that all incentives were given following standard cost-and-benefit analyses.

A Productive Legislator

When it comes to making laws—the other key job of a state lawmaker outside passing budgets—Skoufis ranked third among all state senators in the number of sponsored bills passed by both chambers in the past legislative session.

His legislation package covered both local laws—such as allowing a town to levy hotel tax—and statewide bills, including a years-in-the-making amendment to the alcoholic beverage law to level the playing field for craft beverage makers.

“People think, ‘Oh, well, as long as you are in the majority, you are fine,’” Skoufis said. “[But] within my own party, our ideologies, our geography, our backgrounds, and our interests are quite diverse—I’d say I’m on the center-left, pragmatic side of the Democratic conference—and sometimes it takes one or two vocal colleagues to cause issues for a bill.

“It requires a lot of focus and a lot of discussions with colleagues, especially on more complex matters, to get them, hopefully, to a place where they are comfortable and able to support.”

Some of his bills are rather controversial, such as a 2023 law shifting certain elections at town and county levels from odd to even years to coincide with state and national elections.

The law invited a joint lawsuit from several upstate counties, including Orange, which argue it violates the constitutional home rule. On Oct. 8, a state Supreme Court judge in the County of Onondaga ruled the law unconstitutional, an order that Skoufis said will be appealed.

“This, unfortunately, has become a partisan issue, and it should not be,” Skoufis told The Epoch Times. “Everyone should get behind increasing voter participation in our local elections.”

Pressing Issues

If reelected, Skoufis said he would continue tackling the issue of affordability at the state level.

“It is something that I have been very focused on and will continue to be very focused on,” he said, noting an upcoming Senate investigation into the rising homeowner insurance premiums in New York and potential bills to reduce state income tax rates for average taxpayers.

Citing his support for amendments to the bail reform and new measures in tackling shoplifting, Skoufis said public safety will also be his priority.

The 2019 bail law eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies in New York state over cases where people stay behind bars because they cannot afford bail. Some provisions of the law have since been rolled back.

State lawmakers are expected to debate updating a major state school aid formula in the next budget negotiations, and Skoufis said he would be a voice for his district at the table.

“I need to make sure whatever changes are made to this formula, at a minimum, they do no harm to the school districts that I represent—that will be the lens I view these proposals,” he said.

The temporarily paused New York City congestion pricing program is also expected to be a major issue in the upcoming budget negotiations. Legislators may pass a revamped toll version or find money elsewhere to fill the budget gap of the Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA).

“We need someone at the negotiating table making sure that Orange County, which gets minimal public transportation services, is protected from undue new taxes or tolls,” Skoufis said.

The first-in-the-nation congestion toll program intends to charge most drivers $15 per day for entering the busiest part of Manhattan to ease congestion and fund MTA.