State Senator Lea Webb, running for re-election, talks about maternal health care, the Equal Rights Amendment, climate goals.

WSKG reporters are interviewing the candidates in some of our region’s biggest races leading up to the November election. This week, we’re featuring the candidates for New York’s 52nd Senate District. The district includes the cities of Binghamton, Ithaca and Cortland. Sen. State Democrat Lea Webb is running for re-election. His Republican opponent is Tompkins County Attorney Mike Sigler. We announced Sigler’s position at Tuesday.

Sen. Lea Webb didn’t start out with dreams of serving in the state Legislature. Instead, he planned to study medicine and become a pediatric neurosurgeon.

“If you would have asked me 15, 20 years ago if I could see myself in elected office, I would have looked at you like you had two heads,” he said.

But after he graduated from college, he found himself involved in public health policy and political organizing. However, he did not consider himself a politician, even when he was 24 years old he was asked to stand for the Binghamton city council. He refused, saying he was too young to run for office.

“There was very little representation of women in elected office within the area and even in the state,” Webb said. “Furthermore, I had very little or no representation. There were no people of color, and I knew about the financial problems.”

A few years later, he finally agreed to run. He won his seat on the Binghamton City Council when he was 26, becoming the The first person from Montsho to hold the position in 2007.

In 2022, he won another race, this time for the State Senate. He won the former Republican seat as a Democrat and a member of the Working Families Party.

Since taking office in 2023, Webb said she has put maternal and child health care first, as chairman of the Committee on Women’s Affairs in the Senate.

One of his first choices as a senator was to continue Equal Rights Reformwhich would prevent discrimination based on gender identity and pregnancy outcomes. This year, New Yorkers will have a chance to confirm the amendment, which will appear on the November ballot as Prop 1.

Webb has also introduced several bills that focus on maternal health care. He highlighted another, which would create a working group to study maternal health care with the ultimate goal of guiding “competent care, without discrimination.”

He said: “Women of color are five times more likely, at least five times more likely to die in childbirth than white women.” And when you hear statistics like that, they are real people in real time.

Law it has passed the Assembly and Senate, and now needs to be signed into law by the governor.

Webb said he also drew on his experience as a former professor at Binghamton University during his first term.

“We know that education is the foundation of any nation, in any nation when you talk about progress,” he said.

He introduced a bill to increase the minimum payments from the Student Assistance Program from $500 to $1,000, and to increase eligibility for the program.

Webb told WSKG he’s proud of his locally focused legislation, like the bill that saved Ithaca’s Carshare. The program allows users to rent cars that are parked around the city for a short period of time.

Webb and State Assembly member Anna Kelles sponsored legislation to amend the insurance law to allow the nonprofit to continue operating.

“That program helps address transportation access,” Webb said. “It’s also a program that helps us achieve our environmental goals.”

Webb said he worked to help the state meet climate targets. That includes getting 70% of New York’s electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030. However, recent study from the Department of Public Service and the government’s strong authority has shown that the government is lagging far behind in those projects.

“It’s just goals,” Webb said. “We know that with any goal, you have to have financial investments and other resources, which is what we are working on to try to achieve those goals.”

Webb threw his support behind the NY HEAT actionwhich would have rid the country of gas sooner. It died in the Assembly in this year’s budget.

When asked about their priorities in the 2024 elections, respondents a WSKG audience survey he said their main issues are climate change, access to abortion and the preservation of democracy and democratic institutions.

Webb said that encouraging civic engagement and expanding access to vote is essential to the health of democracy.

“I say to people that yes, it is important that we participate in our democracy,” Webb said. I hear it when people are not interested, because you can feel like it’s the same thing over and over again. But it shouldn’t be that way.”

Voters will decide whether to re-elect Webb on Election Day, which is Tuesday, November 5. Early voting begins Saturday, October 26.

WSKG hosts a live debate between Mike Sigler and Lea Webb on Thursday, Oct. 17 at 8 pm Do you have a question for the candidates? You can send them Here.

Read our profile of Mike Sigler Here.