Another Reason Why State Senator Martin Golden No Longer Should Be Taken Seriously

For a long time, State Senator Golden and/or his staff have been accused of crashing the announcement events of other elected officials or making statements stealing credit for the accomplishments of others  —  occasionally, those kinds of charges have had more than a grain of truth in them —   with their own statement released yesterday, Golden & Co. have moved in on a topical news story  in a way that far exceeds anything, of which even their worst detractors would have charged them in the past   

Something has become commonplace with Brooklyn’s lone elected Republican official  and whoever does his PR releases  —  the absolute overselling of various pieces of legislation that Martin Golden either has proposed or supports.  Very often these Golden-supported measures have no chance of passing both chambers of the NYS Legislature and being signed into law; more often the proposed pieces of legislation are either non-controversial or so very technical, and/ or are changes of such a minor degree, they wouldn't have any significance for the average citizen or resident of New York State. So routinely something needs to be connected to the story to gin up the public's interest. Perhaps to be expected, such a practice can lead to a serious overreach.

CASE IN POINT: on Monday, March 4th, 2013  “Martin J. Golden”  posted  this statement on the “Official” tax-payer-funded webpage of  “NEW YORK STATE SENATOR MARTIN J. GOLDEN  –  ASSISTANT SENATE MAJORITY WHIP, (R, C) 22ND SENATE DISTRICT”:

“SENATOR GOLDEN: IN WAKE OF WEEKEND BROOKLYN HIT AND RUN HORROR, ASSEMBLY MUST ACT TO INCREASE PENALTIES
Brooklyn – In the wake of this weekend’s hit and run horror that killed Nachman and Raizy Glauber, and baby, that has devastated the Williamsburg community, State Senator Martin J. Golden (R-C-I, Brooklyn) today is calling on the State Assembly to pass his legislation, S. 2503, that increases penalties for such offenses. Senator Golden is calling on the Assembly to stop putting the brakes on life saving legislation and urging a vote as soon as possible....

....Each day that the Assembly fails to act, it is another day that New Yorkers are traveling in danger. ***  The bill increases the penalties for drivers who leave the scene of an accident without stopping and/or reporting it, causing property damage, from a Class A Misdemeanor to a Class E Felony. The penalty for repeat hit and run drivers who cause property damage or personal injury, would be elevated from a Class E Felony to a Class D Felony. Drivers who flee from the scene of an accident where someone was killed would now face a Class C Felony.”

Is State Senator Golden serious ?    “...[L]ife saving legislation...”  —   “...Each day that the Assembly fails to act, it is another day that New Yorkers are traveling in danger...”   How does raising the category of a crime one level save any lives at all ?   How is the assembly failing to quickly act on this legislation, or even it fails or refuses to act on it in any way, causing any increase in the dangers of any New Yorkers that are traveling?

I submit to you that this shows quite clearly that State Senator Martin Golden is not being serious at a time when he should be very serious in the conduct of his office.  However, this is more than mere hyperbole, puffery and cheap grand-standing; it is something darker, something that changes the act from something cynical to something sinister.

Senator Golden and/or some member(s) of his staff are trying to capitalize on a very painful local tragedy  —   the untimely deaths of  Nachman and Raizy Glauber  —  together with that of their traumatized and very premature posthumously delivered child, who lived mere hours. These three very tragic, very young victims died on March 3rd and 4th.  They specifically had been mentioned in Senator Golden’s statement about a piece of legislation that was proposed, and largely processed in 2012 and overwhelmingly passed the NYS Senate on February 11, 2013 without any controversy; and more important, without any knowledge that those people mentioned in Golden's March 4th statement even existed, would come into existence and die as the result of a "hit and run accident." They were mentioned solely as part of an overly emotional appeal, calculated to milk all the news value that a single non-controversial piece of legislation proposed by State Senator Golden could obtain under these very sad circumstances.

It's so cynical that it's practically indescribable, even now that it has unfortunately seen the light of day.

Let’s just leave it at this   —   The State Senator’s statement above is one that a serious community representative and state legislator should never have made; and connecting a piece of legislation that had already passed in the Senator's chamber to an unrelated recent tragedy is something that should not have been done.