What do youth football, bicycles, packaging materials and beverages have in common? Little, except this: downstate legislators have tried to either overregulate or ban what we do, consume or use in our personal lives. Most recently, we’ve seen them succeed in trampling on Second Amendment rights with Gov. Cuomo’s gun control law.

Whether it’s a bill aimed at banning Pee-Wee football for children, dictating how big our soft drinks can be, forcing the registration of our kids’ bicycles or requiring that we not use Styrofoam packaging, it sure seems to me that my downstate colleagues have their priorities out of order. Parents, and I am sure taxpayers, are fed up.

It is all a little absurd that their great concerns revolve around taking away parental decisions rather than helping thousands of unemployed New Yorkers, removing the regulatory burden on small businesses so our economy can grow and lifting Albany’s unfunded mandates on schools and local governments that increase property taxes on families to an unsustainable and unaffordable level. We can and must do better.

We have great challenges in our state, ones that require our full attention. It is not acceptable that any legislator lose focus on the agenda that improves opportunities and economic growth for our communities and working families.

I am going to keep it simple: I will oppose any laws that waste your taxpayer dollars or time. It’s time for Albany to get back to work for you.

I’d like to hear your ideas. Share them with me by calling my office at 315-493-3909 or by emailing me at blankenbushk@assembly.state.ny.us.