Karen Issues
NEW FINANCIAL INITIATIVES
Karen Smythe is working for all the families and taxpayers of the Hudson Valley and pays attention to the urgent needs of the residents.
JOBS & ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES
Karen knows the value of a strong middle-class from her experience running her family’s construction business, C.B. Strain & Son. Under her leadership, C.B. Strain flourished and supported hundreds of union jobs in the local community. Karen understands that we need more middle-class jobs that pay a living wage, and she will fight to spur economic growth in the Hudson Valley to bring diverse, well-paying jobs to the area.
ENVIRONMENT
Karen firmly believes that a healthy, thriving environment is essential to a prosperous Hudson Valley. She will fight to preserve our region’s most precious resource, the Hudson River, and protect our drinking water. Karen knows that our economy will boom when we utilize our natural resources to bring more environmentally-friendly, green jobs to the Hudson Valley.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
With forces hostile to women’s rights running Washington and on the cusp of controlling the Supreme Court, we need to protect a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health care choices now more than ever. Karen unabashedly supports a woman’s right to choose and believes that the Reproductive Health Act must pass immediately to codify Roe v Wade into New York State law. Karen will also work to ensure equal pay for equal work because in 2018, it’s time to solve wage inequity.
EDUCATION
Every student deserves the chance to earn a high-quality education. In New York, we’ve made progress, but there is still much more that we can do to provide our students with the opportunity and tools they need to be successful. Karen will fiercely work to ensure our schools are funded. Karen supports reducing test burdens and allowing parents to opt children out of certain common core standards. She staunchly believes that student test scores should be decoupled from teacher evaluations so that teachers can teach our students, and not teach to the test. Karen will also fight to bring more technical trade skills to our classrooms, because ‘one size doesn’t fit all’ –and students deserve the option to follow different pathways to success.
STANDING UP FOR TAXPAYERS
Hudson Valley families and seniors have long been overburdened by some of the highest taxes in the country, leaving too many families to make hard-choices about whether they stay in the state. Karen will be a fierce advocate for middle-class tax relief and will stand up against devastating tax increases to protect hard-working taxpayers and businesses.
AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE
Karen understands that affordable and high-quality health care coverage should be a basic human right and should be available to all New Yorkers. As State Senator, Karen will support the creation of a universal single-payer health plan for New York State, as well as legislation that safeguards New Yorkers’ ability to access healthcare and federal attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
PROTECTING OUR KIDS
One of Karen’s top priorities is to ensure that our students are safe and protected in school. Every child has the right to feel safe in school without the fear of gun violence hanging over their heads. Karen supports common-sense gun safety laws like banning bump stocks, strengthening background checks, and implementing ‘extreme risk protection orders’ to keep guns out of the hands of individuals deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. Karen also supports taking steps to prevent domestic violence offenders from having access to firearms to protect families and children from the threat of gun violence. In the Senate, Karen will advocate for the passage of the Child Victims Act because we should be helping survivors of this heinous crime pursue justice, not shielding their predators from prosecution.
ETHICS
As your State Senator, Karen will fight to clean up Albany. She believes that in order to restore integrity to our elections, we must close the LLC loophole to eliminate excess campaign contributions from limited liability companies. She also supports public campaign financing, term limits, and banning outside income.
