Remember, Roy McDonald did right thing
No news can be really bad news
The Front Page
Evening Update
Monday, March 29, 2021
By Ken Tingley
It was 10 years ago that Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed to make same-sex marriage a state law. It was pretty controversial at the time.
In order to get it passed, three Republican state senators had to be convinced to vote for the measure.
When Sen. Roy McDonald, who had twice voted against same-sex marriage in the Assembly and had won re-election the previous fall with 58 percent of the vote, was asked about the legislation, he said he was “uncommitted.”
That meant he was thinking about it.
As the vote neared in June, McDonald said, “I will be doing what I think is right.”
McDonald became one of three Republican state senators to vote for the same-sex marriage law.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal now, but it cost McDonald his career. Kathleen Marchione, the Saratoga County clerk, beat McDonald in a primary by 100 votes and McDonald walked away from politics.
It was a significant loss for the people of his district and for the Republican Party.
When I had lunch with McDonald last summer, we talked a little about the same-sex marriage vote.
“I would ask them, `Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear or do you want me to tell you the truth?’” McDonald told me. “They didn’t want the truth.”
Ten years later, that sounds a lot like what we hear in politics today. There are too many partisan people who don’t want the truth.
After reading a story about Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger Monday, I thought of McDonald.
Raffensperger was the George official who refused to change the vote totals in the Georgia presidential election. He stood up for democracy and the right thing. Another official has announced he will run against Raffensperger next year. Politico has reported he has few friends in the Republican Party.
Because he did the right thing.
Roy McDonald can relate.
“Give me 100 Roy McDonalds who are willing to stand up to their own political party, who are willing to reconsider a position he has held for most of his life,” I wrote on July 26, 2011. There were many who disagreed with me.
A year later, a young woman from Homestead High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana was chosen the winner of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest for high school students.
The award recognizes a public official at the local, state or federal level whose actions demonstrate the qualities of politically courageous leadership in the spirit of John F. Kennedy’s book “Profiles in Courage.”
Jamie Baer’s subject was Roy McDonald.
She concluded her essay this way:
“McDonald’s leap of faith in June 2011 came at a steep price. Although his vote in favor of same-sex marriage cost him his reelection to the state senate, it was a worthy sacrifice. In the words of Mayor Bloomberg, McDonald walked away from the state senate with the `satisfaction of knowing for the rest of his life he stood up and voted his conscience.’ McDonald reaffirmed America’s `faith that the people will not simply elect men who will represent their views ably and faithfully, but also elect men who will exercise their conscientious judgment.’ During his first and last term in the state Senate, McDonald achieved a feat most politicians do not accomplish in a lifetime - he embodied true democracy.”
I hope someone recognizes Brad Raffensperger’s “Profile in Courage’ moment, too.
Doing the right thing is important.
More newspaper troubles
No news is usually bad news.
When I was editor of The Post-Star and the Legislature was struggling to pass an on-time budget, we decided to leave the editorial space blank, saying that we would go back to work when the New York State Legislature went back to work and passed a budget.
I was reminded of that Monday morning after reading about how the weekly Northeast News in Kansas City left its front page blank last week.
They told confused readers it had lost an unprecedented amount of advertising revenue during the pandemic. So the six-member staff wanted to remind its community what it might look like if it ceased publication.
“That’s the message we wanted to send: What happens if we’re gone?” publisher and co-owner Michael Bushnell told the Poynter Institute. “If we print a blank front page with no news, people are going to see what it’s like if we’re gone.”
It is a reminder to us wall that we should support local news outlets.
Poynter also pointed out that a 2020 study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found at least 1,800 communities had lost their local news outlet since 2004.
Quote of the Day
“I own an AR-15. If there’s a natural disaster in South Carolina where the cops can’t protect my neighborhood, my house will be the last one that the gang will come to, because I can defend myself.”
-Sen. Lindsey Graham on Fox News Sunday when asked if there should be a serious debate about assault-style weapons.
