NY state senator sparks fury saying lawmakers who are ‘past childbearing age’ have ‘less fight’

A New York State Senator sparked fury with a recent tweet that suggested that older lawmakers who are ‘past childbearing age’ have ‘less fight’ in them than younger counterparts and won’t fight as hard for reproductive rights.

Biaggi, 36, posted the Twitter thread last month, which spurred some initial backlash, but the spark was ignited this week when the progressive candidate embraced an attack mailer against her and shared it, resurfacing her initial message. 

In the initial July 5 thread posted to Twitter by Biaggi, a progressive running on a message of generational change, read: ‘At the risk of sounding ageist, it’s still important to ask: when a majority of Congress is past child-bearing age, how fierce can we expect their fight to be?’ 

Biaggi following up with another tweet, writing that ‘elders’ have value but need to make space for younger leaders. 

This week, the thread has resurfaced in the midst of Biaggi’s Democratic primary bid to take down five-term Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney and has reignited attacks ahead of Primary Day on Tuesday.

Biaggi shared an image of the attack mailer that showed the words ‘All of us who are ‘past child-bearing age’ have one word for Alessandra Biaggi: goodbye.’ She then thanked Hudson PAC for sharing one of her ‘finest tweets.’

Biaggi, who is the granddaughter of former Bronx Congressman Mario Biaggi and served as Assistant General Counsel in former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration, has spent three years in the Legislature representing the Bronx and Westchester crusading against sexual harassment and police abuse.

Biaggi resurfaced her own tweet this week by sharing a  post referencing a PAC linked to her opponent Maloney and included a picture of a flyer that showed her original tweet. 

‘Hudson PAC thanks for sharing one of my finest tweets,’ Biaggi wrote in a post earlier this week which prompted a slew of responses. Many women in the district, which includes the counties of Putnam, Rockland and Westchester, were fuming over Biaggi’s comments. 

Harriet Cornell, a member of the Rockland County Legislature, said she was ‘shocked’ by Biaggi’s statements. She added that she believes older women pack as much of a punch as young lawmakers.

Cornell, of West Nyack, said that she would vote for Maloney, and that she was surprised to see a Democrat saying ‘something insulting for older women.’

‘Women of all ages bring great experiences to their lives and to local government,’ Cornell, an 89-year-old Democrat, said by phone Friday. ‘I am proud of being my age.’

Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, 82, who is also a longtime supporter of Maloney, called Biaggi’s tweets ‘offensive.’

The Democrat added: ‘I think she’s out of touch with reality somewhat. She should have just apologized and just said it was inappropriate.’  

Suzanne Berger, 65, the chairwoman of the Westchester County Democratic Committee, said: ‘You’ve got to know when to hold them and when to fold them.’

She said she’s supporting Maloney. 

Biaggi’s campaign spokeswoman, Monica Klein, said in a statement that Biaggi ‘believes our government should be as diverse as our country — including racial, economic, gender and age diversity — which is why we need more young people in Congress.’

A spokesman for Maloney’s campaign, Mia Ehrenberg, responded on Friday: ‘While Senator Biaggi alienates and offends voters across the Hudson Valley with her ageist comments, Rep. Maloney is winning this race by building a strong grassroots coalition,’ Ehrenberg said in a statement, New York Daily News reported.  

Biaggi, who has been backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, has trailed in the House race, according to limited polling. 

Biaggi, like Ocasio-Cortez, has a history of taking on powerful, more moderate members of her party and espouses an activist, working-people credo.

In the same 2018 progressive wave that carried Ocasio-Cortez into office, Biaggi — despite being heavily outspent — ousted a longtime state senator known for leading a band of Democrats who collaborated with Republicans. She’s counting on a similar grassroots approach and desire for change as she aims to topple Maloney.

‘I’m going to be on those doors, just like I’ve been every single weekend, knocking them down off the hinges, push through every single inch,’ she said as she rallied a group of campaign volunteers in Sleepy Hollow for a weekend of door-knocking.

She’s also counting on the unusual circumstances of next week’s primary to help her chances. It’s the second primary election New Yorkers have had this summer, a delayed date to accommodate the redrawing of political maps after the first attempt at redistricting was thrown out in court.

There was a primary in June for the governors race and other statewide offices, but the primary for congressional races was delayed until Aug. 23 so new maps could be drawn.

New Yorkers aren’t used to voting in two primaries, especially one in late August, when many are on vacation, and the new maps may leave them unfamiliar with their new district lines and who is considered an incumbent — which could create an opening for someone like Biaggi with activist energy behind her.  

The 56-year-old Maloney was seen as a rising Democratic star when he was first elected to the House a decade ago. The first openly gay congressman from New York, he was at the vanguard of a new Democratic Party making inroads far beyond its urban base.

But he’s facing the primary challenge next week from Biaggi, who has sought to portray Maloney as an out-of-touch operator of the establishment.

While Maloney has represented parts of the newly-drawn 17th District, Biaggi currently represents none of it in her state Senate seat and moved about 15 miles north to become a resident.

Maloney also moved north from New York City when he first ran to represent the region 10 years ago, but he is quick to note that he and his husband already had a second home in the area at the time.

‘She has every right to run, but people have a right to know that her district is 95% in the Bronx and I represent several hundred thousand people who are in this district,’ he said of Biaggi in the interview.

He and his supporters have painted her politics as too far left for the district, pointing to her embrace of the ‘defund the police’ messaging that liberals took up in 2020 amid a broader national reckoning over race and policing.

Biaggi has said in interviews that she’s no longer using the term because it doesn’t do a great job of conveying the need for policing reforms. Her campaign has armed its volunteers with talking points on her use of the phrase, pointing out that her grandfather was a decorated police officer and she used the phrase while reacting to the horrific video showing the killing of George Floyd.

‘This was like, in the heat of a moment where she saw a pretty horrific incident and tweeted that — because we don’t need to shy away from that,’ Cori Marquis, a Biaggi campaign aide, explained to volunteers in Sleepy Hollow as they prepared to knock doors and pitch voters. ‘She has been very clear in speech, in action, in policy, that she is really committed to working with all stakeholders to reform our criminal justice system.’

Biden won the areas in the new congressional district by 5 points in 2020, but northern stretches of it, which Maloney represents, heavily favor the GOP and Donald Trump won his district in 2016. Maloney won his current seat from a Republican a decade ago and has held on to the battleground ever since, which he said was ‘not a given for a gay guy with an interracial family.’

Voters there, he contends, want someone who can work across the aisle but also defeat Republicans.

Maloney’s work on matters across the aisle — and to defeat one Republican in particular — has drawn blowback from members of his own party, including harsh criticism from Biaggi.

The House Democrats’ campaign arm, which Maloney chairs, spent $425,000 on a campaign ad in Michigan that boosted the far-right opponent of Rep. U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer, one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.

Meijer lost to a Trump-backed candidate, which Maloney said has only boosted the prospects for the Democratic nominee in December. But members of his own party warn it was a dangerous gamble.

‘It makes people feel like the Democrats are playing a game and it’s not a game,’ Biaggi said. ‘I think it represents everything that people hate about politics.’

Maloney said he understand people debating the tactic but defended the move.

‘My job is to win seats. We are more likely to win that seat now than before the primary, and that is the bottom line. And that is my responsibility. Full stop,’ he said.