Skoufis Talks to Constituents About Car Insurance Premiums, ICE, and Bail Reform

MIDDLETOWN, N.Y.—State Sen. James Skoufis met with Middletown residents on July 22 to highlight his work in the Legislature, discuss his efforts to help Orange County, and answer questions.

Topics covered by Skoufis included how auto insurance reform could cause premiums to fall by hundreds of dollars, his position on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York state, and his attempts to change bail reform laws.

Skoufis represents New York State Senate District 42, which covers most of Orange County, excluding the Montgomery and Newburgh areas. He is from the town of Woodbury, and he served in the state Assembly from 2013 to 2018 and has served in the state Senate since 2019. He conducts an annual town hall tour of Orange County called the “Skoufis on Your Street” series.

Skoufis told his audience at the Tapped bar in Middletown that his office passed 80 bills this year in the state Senate, 40 of which passed the Assembly as well. Some have been signed by the governor and more will head to her desk later this year.

One of the bills he mentioned was a bill signed by the governor on July 17 that fixed an Orange County tax distribution error.

Because of a period of more than a decade when a specific tax distribution rule was overlooked, Orange County was facing the possibility of not being able to distribute about $20 million to cities, towns, and villages. The senator sponsored a bill to change the tax laws and fix the problem and was able to pass it through the Legislature and get it signed by the governor in a few months.

Skoufis detailed why this year’s state budget was the latest budget in 16 years, a total of two months behind schedule.

He said there were four main issues that delayed the budget: changing the 2019 emissions timeline for the state, auto insurance reform, changes to the State Environmental Quality Review Act, and the state response to ICE activity.

The senator said that New York has long had comparatively high car insurance rates. He said that because of laws that require insurance companies to pay out fully, even when the policyholder is mostly responsible for the crash, insurance providers need to charge higher premiums to New York state residents.

Skoufis said that the standard for payouts has now been changed and that the definition of a serious injury has been made uniform, as it previously had several definitions throughout state law. The senator said that insurance carriers have said these changes are expected to lower premiums by several hundred dollars starting next year.

Another point brought up in the Senate budget discussions was whether immigration enforcement officers should be banned from wearing masks. A mask ban was added to the budget, passed, and signed into law in May by the governor.

Skoufis said he was one of the senators chosen to negotiate the details on the mask ban and that he is in support of banning masks.

He said that other law enforcement agents do not wear masks and that immigration enforcement can do its job without masks as well.

One resident told Skoufis that immigration enforcement officers need the masks because they might be identified for retribution.

The senator said in response, “Judges and other law and other folks in the criminal justice system have had to face similar unfortunate threats, and yet, everyone else is able to perform their duties responsibly without arresting people in masks and guises.”

Skoufis splits from other Democratic Party members on some stances regarding illegal immigrants; for instance, he said he believes that illegal immigrants who commit crimes in the United States should be deported. He also said people who are in the United States without permission are violating a civil law, not a criminal one.

Illegally entering the nation is a criminal offense, with first offenses punishable by up to six months in prison. The act of residing in the United States without authorization, by contrast, is a civil violation, which can lead to deportation, but not criminal charges or jail time.

New York state law currently prohibits local police from working with ICE outside of criminal cases.

Skoufis said he voted differently from the majority of his party 137 times this year, one of the highest rates in the state Senate.

“A lot of those are votes on tax increases and new taxes,” he said. “I’m hypersensitive to the fact, and it is a fact, [that] we live in a high tax state. We live in a high tax region of a high tax state, and I bring that sensitivity to those votes in particular.”

A New Windsor resident asked Skoufis whether he would cosponsor legislation that would create “a scalable deterrent and punishment for misdemeanor repeat offenders,” since bail reform has failed to put away repeat offenders in New Windsor.

Skoufis did not commit to such a proposal, but he did explain the difficulty he went through to change the original 2019 bail law reforms, which caused much of the repeat offender issues.

He said that Republicans in Albany can very easily talk about the issues of the 2019 bail reforms but that it is harder for a Democrat to talk about them because of internal party pressure.

Skoufis described bringing up changes to the bail reform laws at his Democratic conference with other senators.

“I talk about how we need to, as we did three times, we need to revisit this in bail reform,” he said. “‘We need to fix this in bail reform. We need to tweak this in bail reform.’ Two-thirds of that room wants to chop my head off.

“You stick your neck out … as I’ve done many times on this issue over the years, when I’m in a room with a lot of the people, who in some cases … spent decades trying to pass that 2019 bail law.”