Former state Sen. JamesSeward had an unusual habit on election days when he wasn’t facing an opponent.
Instead of hanging out with the political crowd or simply relaxing,he would visit Valley Health Services Nursing Home in Herkimer, said Lisa Betrus, senior vice president and chief administrative and strategy officer for the Bassett Healthcare Network and president of Valley Health Services, who worked with the senator for three decades.
“He would play bingo, have a cup of coffee and a chat,” she said. “He could have been lots of places, but he would always take the time to connect with the most vulnerable. We had a lot of fun those days.”
“I think,” she added, “that says a lot about who he was.”
Seward, a Republican from Milford who served in the Senate for 34 years, died on Saturday at age 72, less than four years after he left the Senate. His long-time chief of staff Duncan Davie sharedthe news.
“The family appreciates the prayers and support of the many well wishers who have encouraged them in recent days and weeks,” he said in a statement, “and requests understanding as they grieve his passing.”
Seward’s family included his wife Cindy, his son Ryan, his daughter Lauren, their spouses and two granddaughters.
A celebration of life will be held at 11 a.m. on August 3 in the Hunt Union Ballroom at SUNY Oneonta.
“He was just an extraordinary man in so many ways,” said state Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-Rome, who served with Seward for 15 years and knew him years before that. “He was talented. He just was genuine, just a genuine individual who had a real passion for serving his communities.”
In fact, Griffo and other colleagues used to refer to Seward as “the gentleman from Milford,” he recalled.
Griffo described him as a mentor, friend and colleague, a humble man who engendered trust and a staunch advocate for the rural areas he represented. And Sewardwas an increasingly rare breed of politician who didn’t seek election for the sake of holding the office, but out to a genuine commitment to serve, he said.
Seward was missed in the Senate as soon as he retired and on both sides of the aisle, Griffo said.
Career path
First elected inthe Senate’s 50th District in 1984, Seward was re-elected 16 times before his retirement at the end of 2020, although for his last term he represented the 51st District, thanks to redistricting.
Between his two districts, both of them sprawling, Seward served, for at least part of his career, parts or all of Herkimer, Otsego, Chenango, Delaware, Cortland, Cayuga, Greene, Scoharie, Tompkins and Ulster counties.
After being sworn in for the 15th time, Seward reflected on his career of public service.
“I came of age politically in the 1960s, which was a time of great turmoil and a lot of people were taking to the streets and demonstrating,” he said. “I took a different path in terms of getting a seat at the table and making changes that way.”
Much of his impact came from his committee work, colleagues said. During his first term, Seward was named chair of the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee and then chair of the Senate Insurance Committee in 1999.
During his last term, he was the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.
Seward announced in 2016 that he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and underwent successful surgery to treat it. But the cancer recurred in 2019 and Seward announced in January 2020 that he would not seek re-election that November.
Then on March 30, Seward was hospitalized at Albany Medical Center with COVID-19, ending up on a ventilator in the intensive care unit before rallying and being discharged after more than two weeks in the hospital.
The decision to retire had not been an easy one for a dedicated politician who had worked his way up to become a very senior member of the Senate Republican Conference, someone looked to by other senators for guidance, Davie said.
Eventually, though, he did adjust to retirement. “He would say, ‘You know, there is life after the Senate,’” Davie recalled.
And in February of 2021, just a month after newly elected state Sen. Peter Oberacker, R-Schenevus took over Seward’s old seat, Seward announced that he had taken on a new, part-time job as a strategic affairs consultant for Bassett Healthcare Network, an organization he had strongly supported as a senator.
He continued his work with Bassett until June, Betrus said.
People person
During Seward’s years in office (and beyond), he became a fixture at events in his district. He used to attend a local fireman’s parade every year and the buffet served afterward at the firehouse, grabbing a plate of ziti and sitting down to talk with the firefighters, Davie said.
And it was like that at all kinds of events, people who know him well said. Watching him at local events, it was amazing to see just how many people Seward knew by name,Betrus said. That’s because he stayed for the entire event, or even longer, so he could really talk to people and get to know them, she said.
“He didn’t just whisk in and out of an event to be counted,” she said.
Seward enjoyed all the events, Davie said.
“He always regretted that he couldn’t clone himself because he was invited to a lot of events he couldn’t go to,” he said.
And Seward’s people skills were part of the reason for his political success, Davie said.
“He really put people above the ordinary rough and tumble of politics … People felt that he listened. People talked to him, felt they were heard,” Davie said. “And I don’t think anybody ever walked away from a conversation with him thinking that he hadn’t listened or he didn’t care.”
Seward did disagree with other people sometimes, but it never made him disagreeable, Davie said. He would say no to people and they would still come away thinking they had had a good meeting, he added.
Effectiveness
But Seward didn’t just get elected time after time —with at least 60% of the vote each time— because he was a nice guy, Davie said. He was also an effective politician.
“He did what he said he was going to do,” Davie said. “He worked for and delivered tax relief. He worked on the local laws that local government needed. He helped get funding for organizations within his district, school districts, which helped reduce the local tax burden.”
Part of that effectiveness came from his desire to learn and to make sure he did his homework, Betrus said.
“Part of the legacy that he leaves,” Griffo said, “is the ability to know a subject, understand a subject and ultimately, work within the governmental process across party lines in order to achieve a resolution to whatever the issue might have been. I think that is a great testament to his skill sets and his personality. He got the job done and he did it with passion.”
Davie attributed the third leg of Seward’s electoral success to another kind of effectiveness. He made sure his office provided solid constituent services, whether that meant helping someone get a lost tax refund or helping a small business owner navigate the process to get a liquor license, he said.
“One of his priorities was making sure that his constituents got help from state government when they had problems with state government,” Davie said.
Upstate advocate
And in everything Seward did, he was committed to fighting for upstate New York and particularly for the needs of his mostly rural constituency. When Griffo floated the idea for forming a regional bipartisan delegation to advocate for regional issues, Seward supported him and became co-chair of the Mohawk Valley Nine, Griffo recalled.
Seward gave the new delegation a “lot of credibility because of his stature,” he said.
When Griffo introduced a bill in 2019 to reduce the number of seats in the state Senate from 63 to 62 with one seat going to every county instead of basing districts on population, Seward backed the bill. The state is dominated by New York City and resources need to be more equitably distributed, Seward said at the time.
Seward also backed a proposed amendment to the state constitution in 2020 that have split the state into three autonomous regions: upstate, New York City, and Long Island and Rockland and Westchester counties.
Again Seward decried “downstate domination.”
“The SAFE Act, bail reform and farm policies are just a few recent areas where New York City-based politicians have strong-armed their beliefs into law over the objection of the rest of the state,” Seward said.
Seward fought for what he saw as upstate priorities: access to broadband, emergency services and health care; funding for schools to lower the property tax burden; gun rights; economic development and job creation; lower taxes; support for small business; fewer unfunded state mandates; and, with several colleges in his district, higher education as both an educational and economic issue.
He was recognized many times over the years for his advocacy, most recently with the New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health Hero Award for his efforts to enhance agricultural safety and health. Betrus accepted the award in Seward’s behalf in January. NYCAMH is a Bassett program.
Seward also, for example, received the 2018 Advocate of the Year from the New York State Association of School Business Officials; the 2014 Preferred Source Champion Award from New York State Industries for the Disabled Inc. For his efforts to create jobs for people with disabilities; and the 2014 Guardian Award from the national Federation of Independent Business.
And Seward embraced two extremely local causes. He introduced a bill to name baseball the official state sport after a fourth-grade class at Cooperstown Elementary School pitched the idea.Oberacker reintroduced the idea when he took over the seat and it passed in 2021.
Seward also proposed making Herkimer diamonds the official mineral of New York State. The measure passed the Senate at least twice, but never the Assembly. (Garnets are the state’s official gemstone.)
Upstate advocate
Everything Seward did came down to one thing, Betrus said. “He just truly loved his communities and he loved the State of New York,” she said. “And he really believed in what was possible. And we were really lucky to have had that vision for all the years that he served.”
When a politician spends so many decades on Albany, one learns that there are stories about them, stories told by staff, lobbyists and others who have had interactions with the legislator, Davie said.
“And some of those stories aren’t pleasant,” he continued. “There are some legislators who have reputations for being brusque, shall we say, or dismissive. But all of the stories about Sen. Jim Seward are universally reflective about how decent he was, how kind, how courteous, how professional he was in all of his interactions with people.
“Nobody, and I mean nobody, had an unpleasant thing to say about Sen. Seward."’"
And then Davie took his praise to a still higher level.
“He gave,” he said, “politics a good name.”
