PLEASANTVILLE, New York — A New York police union is spending heavily to defeat state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who previously expressed support for directing funding away from police, because her “loyalty is to people,” the candidate told a handful of voters Sunday.
Speaking at a private home in Pleasantville at a hastily organized meet and greet, the liberal challenger in the Democratic primary for New York’s 17th Congressional District said she was insulted by the New York City Police Benevolent Association’s hefty financial campaign to engineer her defeat, pointing to her grandfather’s record of service as a New York Police Department officer as evidence of her support for law enforcement.
“My loyalty is to people. … It’s also why there’s all this money flooding in. It’s why there’s a tremendous amount of pushback,” she told the Westchester County voters.
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Biaggi railed against the “dark money” backing opponent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney’s campaign, arguing resisting the temptation to accept such funding is “the essence of what builds trust.”
“Taking a stand for anti-corruption to me is really, really important. It’s not easy, but it’s really important, and one of the ways that I maintain that is by not taking money from special interests,” she said, noting that after she won elected office in 2018, she “didn’t have anybody breathing down [her] neck to tell [her], ‘You’d better vote this way or you’re gonna lose your seat.'”
The New York Democrat said she’d overcome Maloney’s incumbency advantage by relying on grassroots support, noting her campaign has knocked on 16,000 doors, made 88,000 phone calls, sent 27,000 text messages, and dispatched 300 volunteers.
The state senator invoked the legacy of former Rep. Mario Biaggi, her late grandfather and a highly decorated NYPD officer who was wounded 11 times before becoming a popular member of Congress, to express her outrage at the union’s contributions to Maloney.
“I would sit in his apartment in the White Hall in Riverdale, and the phone would ring off the hook. People would be like, ‘I need help with this thing.’ He’d be like, ‘One second.’ He’s like 90 years old, doing constituent services, and I’m like, ‘What the hell is going on? This is so cool!'” she said, adding Mario Biaggi’s public service in his later years was “so meaningful.”
The union has donated $313,265.08 in opposition to Biaggi’s congressional bid, according to the Federal Election Commission. Representatives for the union did not return the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
Biaggi, who noted Sunday she’d like to see increased transparency from law enforcement and called on voters to “transform institutions,” has previously expressed support for defunding the NYPD, tweeting, “We must defund the police,” and using the hashtag “#DefundTheNYPD” in two June 2020 tweets, according to the New York Post.
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Maloney, who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, currently represents New York’s 18th Congressional District but decided to run in the newly drawn 17th District when the state redrew its district boundaries after losing a seat due to the 2020 U.S. census. The congressman, first elected in 2012, has $4,013,556.28 in total receipts compared to Biaggi’s $806,898.90, according to the FEC.
New York’s 17th Congressional District has a partisan voter index of D+7, meaning whoever wins the Democratic nomination on Tuesday is favored to win the general election in November.
