How One Of America’s Trumpiest Democrats Got A Surprising Challenger

In local pol­i­tics, right here in our neigh­bor­hood many in the Democratic machin­ery, act as Republicans and vote with Republicans on some of the most con­tro­ver­sial issues includ­ing the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar jail com­plex right here on Hamilton street in the city of Poughkeepsie.
Local Democratic Council rep­re­sen­ta­tives say the bond was approved to build the jail with­out the req­ui­site envi­ron­men­tal stud­ies and the effect the com­plex will have on the local environment.

Here in the city of Poughkeepsie, it is only a three- minute dri­ve across the mid-Hudson bridge and you are in Ulster County, a coun­ty which is laud­ed as one of the most lib­er­al coun­ties in the entire Country.
Yet the sor­did sto­ries of and the unend­ing tales of racial pro­fil­ing, and the ille­gal search­ing of peo­ple of col­or vehi­cles by the Ulster County’s Sheriff’s office, The State Police and the Town of Lloyd’s police are far too many to be ignored.

In this Article, our friends at the Nation talks about the Democratic Sherriff of Ulster coun­ty and how the race is shap­ing up in this one of the most lib­er­al coun­ties in the age of Trump.

.….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…

Some say Ulster County’s long­time sher­iff sees him­self as “above the law” — but pri­ma­ry vot­ers have a chance to show him otherwise.

In the Hudson Valley, a dis­tinct­ly Trump-like Democrat is fac­ing an unex­pect­ed pri­ma­ry chal­lenge in a key local race — one that’s most­ly flown under the nation­al radar.

At a can­di­dates’ forum in Woodstock last week, Ulster County Sheriff Paul Van Blarcum, who is seek­ing his fourth term in office, raised eye­brows when he told the crowd, “It’s out there that I’m a racist, and that the sheriff’s office is racist. Am I get­ting sued by four black offi­cers? Yes. But let me tell you this: They’re suing me for not get­ting pro­mot­ed. Two out of the four nev­er even took a pro­mo­tion­al exam. The third one took the exam and failed. The fourth per­son took the exam, and passed, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, he was arrest­ed for steal­ing from the sheriff’s office. So that makes me a racist and I don’t under­stand it.”

He added: “As far as the oth­er law­suits against me, we’ve won every one of them.” (A female cor­rec­tions offi­cer who sued the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office in fed­er­al court for on-the-job harass­ment was award­ed a large set­tle­ment in 2014.)

Norman James, who retired from the sheriff’s office in April after 30 years work­ing at the Ulster County jail, is one of the plain­tiffs in the case Van Blarcum men­tioned in Woodstock (there are five in total, and two are no longer with the depart­ment). He said he and the oth­ers are suing the sheriff’s office in fed­er­al court for sys­temic dis­crim­i­na­tion against the department’s small num­ber of black cor­rec­tions officers.

“The white offi­cers get a lot bet­ter treat­ment than the black offi­cers do,” said James. “If you’re a black offi­cer and you com­mit some sort of infrac­tion, you’re dealt with much more harsh­ly by the admin­is­tra­tion than if you’re white. If you’re white, you may get a 30-day sus­pen­sion, but it’s eas­i­ly for­giv­en and for­got­ten and you’re still able to advance. You also get eas­i­er job assignments.”

“There’s an old-boy net­work,” he said, “and it’s all white.” Van Blarcum didn’t respond to an inter­view request.

ames told me about a white offi­cer who threw a glass at a woman in a bar, caus­ing a facial injury that required 150 stitch­es. He faced a 30-day sus­pen­sion and then went on with his career. The black cop who was “arrest­ed for steal­ing from the sheriff’s office” was a vet­er­an with a clean record who ran out of gas one night and filled up his per­son­al vehi­cle with the department’s gas. He offered to pay resti­tu­tion. According to James, that inci­dent occurred 15 years ago, and that offi­cer has been repeat­ed­ly passed over for pro­mo­tions ever since. “Twenty-two years on the job, and he’s still work­ing on the hous­ing units like a rook­ie,” he said.

“I have no inter­est in pro­mo­tions,” said Tyrone Brodhead, a 19-year vet­er­an of the depart­ment and anoth­er plain­tiff in the suit. “My issue is that I’m con­stant­ly being accused of bring­ing in con­tra­band and sub­ject­ed to inter­nal affairs inves­ti­ga­tions. I’m sub­ject­ed to lock­er search­es, vehi­cle search­es, and per­son­al search­es. They’ve nev­er sub­stan­ti­at­ed any of these charges, but I’ve been labeled a drug dealer.”

“I’ve been on the coun­ty­wide swat team, but I’ve been held back from oper­a­tions when­ev­er they involve nar­cotics,” Brodhead observed. “I’ve nev­er been involved in drugs, I don’t use drugs, and there’s no rea­son for this oth­er than the col­or of my skin. It’s a hos­tile work environment.”

The attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the offi­cers didn’t respond to an inter­view request by press time.

In 2014, Van Blarcum ran unop­posed for his third term in office. He was reelect­ed eas­i­ly, tak­ing 90 per­cent of the vote. According to the Times Herald Record, Van Blarcum’s vote total in the coun­ty that year exceed­ed that of both the Democratic and Republican guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­dates combined.

But in May, as sev­er­al oth­er local incum­bents sailed to easy vic­to­ries at the Ulster County Democratic nom­i­nat­ing con­ven­tion, Van Blarcum faced an upris­ing among local Democratic offi­cials and activists. He report­ed­ly left the venue before his bid for the nom­i­na­tion was reject­ed by a lop­sided, 85 per­cent to 15 per­cent margin.

What shift­ed in the inter­ven­ing years? Andrew Zink, pres­i­dent of the Ulster County Young Democrats, said, “The elec­tion of Donald Trump changed the equa­tion.” (Local Democrats were furi­ous when Van Blarcum and sev­er­al of his deputies appeared in a pho­to-op with the pres­i­dent in the Oval Office.) “Trump’s elec­tion woke peo­ple up,” said Zink. “Trump made us look at these local issues and eval­u­ate our local elect­ed offi­cials and ask our­selves, ‘is this what we want?’ And when the Democratic vot­ers of Ulster County looked at that ques­tion in that race, they said, ‘no, we don’t want our own Donald Trump.’”

Since his last, easy reelec­tion in 2014, Van Blarcum has made a series of head­lines, some going nation­al, that alien­at­ed restive Democrats. Local activists said Van Blarcum’s ten­den­cy to use his office to ampli­fy hard-right mes­sages became intol­er­a­ble after the 2016 election.

In the days fol­low­ing a 2015 mass shoot­ing that left 14 peo­ple dead in San Bernardino, California, Van Blarcum urged coun­ty res­i­dents with gun per­mits to car­ry firearms at all times. The appeal was post­ed on his office’s offi­cial Facebook page. The fol­low­ing year, he trashedlocal “sanc­tu­ary city” ordi­nances, and said that his deputies, who, accord­ing to Van Blarcum, have long coop­er­at­ed with the fed­er­al Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, wouldn’t change the way they did busi­ness. Shortly before his last elec­tion, he’d angered gun safe­ty advo­cates by urg­ing his deputies to “use dis­cre­tion” when con­sid­er­ing charges against peo­ple who vio­lat­ed the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act, a gun-con­trol pack­age that New York state passed in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre.

“The sheriff’s made it very clear that he’s above the law,” said Dan Torres, a New Paltz City Councilor and a fierce crit­ic of Van Blarcum. “He’s done that by cam­paign­ing with coun­ty resources, thumb­ing his nose at com­mu­ni­ties that want to pro­tect their immi­grants, mak­ing wild state­ments about guns, and then get­ting the coun­try sued mul­ti­ple times because of his actions. He’s a wingnut with a real dis­re­gard for the US Constitution.”

Van Blarcum’s Democratic chal­lenger, Juan Figueroa, said that it was the sheriff’s deci­sion to weigh in — again, on the Ulster County Sheriff’s offi­cial Facebook page — on NFL play­ers tak­ing a knee to protest racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry polic­ing that first drew his inter­est in the race. The post, which echoed tweets about the issue from Donald Trump, claimed that the play­ers had “show[ed] an utter lack of patri­o­tism and total dis­re­spect for our vet­er­ans — liv­ing and dead — and every­thing that they put their lives on the line for!” It called for Ulster County res­i­dents to “boy­cott all foot­ball tele­casts [and] refrain from attend­ing or view­ing any NFL games.… let the NFL play to emp­ty stadiums.”

Figueroa, a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, said the post was part of a “pat­tern of that sort of behav­ior” that “just shows [that Van Blarcum] has been in office a lit­tle too long and doesn’t real­ize what his job is sup­posed to be. When you use your office for some­thing like that, you’re abus­ing your office. The sher­iff is elect­ed by the peo­ple, and he’s sup­posed to rep­re­sent all of the people.”

Figueroa was also incensed by Van Blarcum’s prac­tice of con­duct­ing “sus­pi­cion­less war­rant checks” on peo­ple enter­ing the local social-ser­vices office, a prac­tice that was only dis­con­tin­ued after then – New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent coun­ty offi­cials a let­ter clar­i­fy­ing that the pol­i­cy was dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and “in vio­la­tion of civ­il rights law.” Story orig­i­nat­ed here( https://​www​.then​ation​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​h​o​w​-​o​n​e​-​o​f​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​s​-​t​r​u​m​p​i​e​s​t​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​t​s​-​g​o​t​-​a​-​s​u​r​p​r​i​s​i​n​g​-​c​h​a​l​l​e​n​g​er/

Since this sto­ry was pub­lished: Van Blarcum was defeat­ed­ly in an over­whelm­ing repu­di­a­tion by the vot­ers who chose Figueroa by a land­slide 80% to 20% drubbing.