By Aleksandra Sidorova
Former Rep. Bill Owens (D-NY) and state Sen. Dan Stec (R-Queensbury), discussed how students can make a difference without running for public office when they visited SUNY Plattsburgh on Sept. 17.
The most powerful tool a citizen has is their vote, Owens and Stec said.
Stec noted that votes have more power during years with no major national election, because fewer people vote. More than two thirds of Americans voted in 2020, an election year, as opposed to about half in 2022, according to the University of Florida’s U.S.
Elections Project. A May Gallup poll suggests turnout will skyrocket for this year’s presidential election.
“A small voter turnout makes anyone that votes — your voice — even louder, because you’re speaking when others are choosing to remain silent,” Stec said.
Stec represents District 45, which includes all of Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Warren counties and parts of St. Lawrence and Washington counties. However, he is running unopposed, as are candidates seeking to represent 19 other districts in the state. This year is his second time without an opponent — the first was in 2014, when he ran for the New York State Assembly.
“I tell everyone it’s one of two things,” Stec said. “Either I’m doing such a great job that everyone wants to see me reelected, or I make the job look so difficult that no one wants to take it on.”
Owens said running uncontested is problematic.
“People are not hearing two voices, they only hear one — and that’s, I think, fairly critical,” Owens said.
Funding could be one reason Stec doesn’t have a competitor, he and Owens said. District 45 has the largest geographical area in the state, meaning fundraising and door-to-door campaigning are taxing.
“You better start now if you’re running in two years,” Stec said.
Another reason Stec doesn’t have a candidate to run against could be that redistricting — a process that by law happens every decade — benefits the officials already in office.
“By and large, especially in the Assembly seats, the red districts got redder and the blue got bluer,” Owens said.
The politicians also encouraged students to research the candidates they are voting for, noting that elections can become personality contests. That research can include consuming multiple news sources and exchanging opinions with family, friends and neighbors to help make an informed decision.
“If (Taylor Swift) is on the ballot, she’s hard to beat,” Stec said.
Owens and Stec also identified communication to be the most powerful tool — at least when it comes to local politics.
“As you can imagine, in a small town, one voice is louder than one voice out of a country of 300 million people,” Stec said. “You have a larger voice in a smaller pond.”
Owens said he had a habit of reading local newspapers and calling people who wrote “nasty letters to the editor” about him.
“Nine out of 10 times, it was a very pleasant conversation, one out of 10 times I got blasted,” Owens said.
Writing letters directly to the politician is helpful, too, Owens and Stec said. While in office, both of them made sure to reply to their constituents with explanations of their political decisions and reasoning.
Although public officials are receptive to calls from constituents, people have the power to solve their own problems by going through the same channels as the official would, Stec said.
“I had better get the same answer you get,” Stec said. “That, to me, is an ethical problem if I’m going to get a better answer than you would on your own.”
Owens and Stec also addressed concerns for the political process being slow. The main reason they identified was stability, which supports the idea of checks and balances.
“It’s a bureaucracy, and it’s a ship. Ships don’t turn on a dime,” Stec said. “There should be a process, it should be predictable because in that, there comes fairness.”
Stec and Owens also commented on approving foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine in the event that they were faced with such a choice. The U.S. budget for the year included $32 billion toward foreign aid. Owens and Stec said the money would be well spent in the United States, but the foreign aid has a purpose of long-term investment.
“You wish it wasn’t so, but you got to deal with the hand that you’re dealt,” Stec said. “Better spend dollars than blood. We’re spending American dollars on our interests overseas. It’s a necessary evil.”
