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District 2 (Somers, Bedford, Mount Kisco, North Salem, Lewisboro)

Democrat Peter Harckham, also on the Working Families and Independence lines, has been a legislator since 2008 and the majority leader since 2010. The back of his baseball card, so to speak, will attest to the fact that he helped craft a bipartisan 2011 budget that cut the tax levy 2.2 percent and slashed spending $30 million (although the Republicans take issue with how those numbers were reached). He backed two voluntary separation plans for county workers that reduced the size of the county government workforce by 10 percent, and he supported employee benefits reforms that will save millions more.

Harckham, however, has a bull's-eye on his back because the Democrats, lo and behold, do not walk in lockstep with Republican Rob Astorino, the county executive; they share a lot of the same goals, but differ on the usual matters — principally what to cut and how to cut in smart ways. For example, Democrats shared Astorino's view that county employees should contribute to their health care costs, but they disagreed on how those contributions should be calculated. Ultimately, the Democrats came up with a better and fairer approach — after a lengthy and messy public battle. That's how government is supposed to work. Harckham faces a challenge from Peter Michaelis, Republican and Conservative. His chief complaint seems to be that Harckham isn't Astorino. We don't think that is sufficient reason to dump Harckham."
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