James Skoufis is a Democratic state senator from Cornwall who has represented much of Orange County in Albany since 2019, after six years in the Assembly. He chairs the Senate’s Investigations and Government Operations Committee and has made a name by fighting the county’s industrial development agency, ticket resellers, and, in 2025, Gov. Kathy Hochul.
So who is James Skoufis, which of his bills became law, and why did seven of them die by veto in one week? The record runs through a state monitor over a county agency, an FBI subpoena that led nowhere public, a fake newspaper headline, and a Nov. 3 race against Republican Jennifer Figueroa.
Quick Facts
- Party
- Democratic (also on the Working Families line)
- Hometown
- Cornwall, N.Y. (raised in Queens and Woodbury)
- Date of Birth
- Not listed in official biographies reviewed; about 38 in May 2026
- Current Position
- New York State Senator, 42nd District
- Background
- Woodbury Town Board member; security company project manager
- In Office Since
- January 2013 (Assembly); January 2019 (Senate)
EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY
Skoufis spent his early years in public housing in Pomonok, Queens, where his mother had also grown up, according to NY Focus. His father came from a mountain village in Greece as a teenager and later ran a deli in Bay Ridge. After his parents divorced, his mother, Donna Colombo, moved the family to Woodbury in 1995 and worked for the Postal Service.
He graduated from Monroe-Woodbury High School, from George Washington University in 2008, and from Columbia University with a master’s degree in 2009. He was the first in his immediate family to go to college, according to his Senate biography. He lives in Cornwall with his daughter, Ava, born in 2021. PagPol could not confirm his birthplace or exact date of birth.
THE ASSEMBLY YEARS, 2012 TO 2018
Before Albany, Skoufis was a project manager at Amerigard Alarm and Security and a Woodbury Town Board member, according to Ballotpedia. In November 2012, at 25, he won the 99th Assembly District, 29,030 to 23,171, over Republican Kyle Roddey, becoming the Assembly’s youngest member. “Politics is about doing the right thing for people, not the right thing for party,” he said at his swearing-in.
He won again in 2014 over Republican Richard Cocchiara; PagPol could not find certified totals for that race. In February 2016 he opened a committee to explore a run for Sen. Bill Larkin’s seat. “Voters are craving a change,” he told WAMC. He stayed in the Assembly instead and beat Republican Colin Schmitt that November, 29,590 to 26,541.
When Larkin retired in 2018, Skoufis ran for the open 39th Senate District. Days before the election the Rockland County Times condemned a Facebook ad from his campaign and Senate Democrats that put a made-up headline, “Tom Basile will break the tax cap,” under the paper’s masthead. “James Skoufis just keeps on lying,” a Basile spokesman said, according to the Rockland County Times.
Skoufis won anyway, 51,548 to 43,988 over Basile, or 53.9 percent. In January 2019 he took office and became chair of the Investigations and Government Operations Committee, a post he still holds. His Senate win came the same year Democrats took full control of the chamber, giving the new majority gavels to hand out.
Skoufis speaks to West Point cadets at the State Capitol during West Point Day in April 2024. (Photo: NY Senate Photo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
FIRST SENATE TERMS, 2019 TO 2022
In the October 2020 debate, Republican Steve Brescia, the Orange County Legislature chairman, told him, “You sat like a sheep in the pasture,” according to WAMC. “I can’t win these races with just Democrats,” Skoufis said at the same event. He won 72,518 to 54,598, or 57 percent.
In May 2021 his committee released a report on the ticket industry along with a bill, S6716, to rein in resellers. It died in committee. In July 2022 he voted for the Concealed Carry Improvement Act, New York’s response to the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, which passed 43 to 20, according to the Senate record.
Redistricting moved him to the new 42nd District for 2022. He beat Republican Dorey Houle, a Monroe Town Board member, 49,728 to 48,296, a margin of 1,432 votes and his closest race. Houle had campaigned against the legislature’s bail and discovery laws. In January 2023 his office said he introduced 70 bills in 2022, and 35 were signed into law.
THE IDA FIGHT AND STARCIO, 2023 TO 2024
In March 2023 Skoufis pushed to put a state monitor over the Orange County Industrial Development Agency, which grants tax breaks to businesses. “I won’t sit idly by while the IDA picks the pockets of Orange County residents year after year,” he said. IDA chief executive Bill Fioravanti called the plan “a disgrace” and accused him of “staging political stunts,” according to Spectrum News.
The monitor became law in the 2023 to 2024 state budget. In June the Senate passed his village incorporation bill, S7538, 39 to 23. In October 2023 Skoufis attacked a no-bid county technology contract with StarCIO, a firm tied to a relative of the county’s human resources commissioner.
Skoufis's winning margin by election
Assembly racesSenate races
Margin in percentage points between Skoufis and his main opponent. PagPol could not find certified 2014 totals. His 2022 race in the redrawn 42nd District was decided by 1,432 votes. Sources: state Board of Elections; Ballotpedia.
That December, Hochul signed S7538 as Chapter 774 of 2023. It raised the minimum population for a new village from 500 to 1,500 and blocked the proposed Village of Seven Springs, according to the Senate record. “Make no mistake: this is the biggest scandal in Orange County government’s recent history,” he said in January 2024, when News 12 reported an FBI subpoena of county records.
In March 2024 a county Legislature committee report found no wrongdoing, according to the Chronicle. PagPol found no charges. That same month the state inspector general named an outside firm as the IDA’s monitor. In April he voted against a budget bill, S8306C, one of five Democrats opposed. NY Focus reports progressive groups blame him for weakening that year’s good cause eviction law.
In November 2024 Skoufis beat Houle again, 73,420 to 54,614, with Conservative Timothy Mitts taking 6,694 votes. City & State reported he ran more than 23 points ahead of Kamala Harris in a district Donald Trump carried. Weeks later he launched a long-shot bid for Democratic National Committee chair. “We’ve tried the operative approach and machine approach, yet here we are,” he said, according to City & State.
THE HOCHUL FEUD, 2025
Skoufis dropped out of the DNC race in January 2025 and later joined its executive committee. On May 7, during a late budget, he said on the Senate floor, “This governor seems to think she is a monarch of sorts.” Hochul press secretary Avi Small called it an “embarrassing, juvenile stunt from a camera-hungry clown,” according to Spectrum News. He still voted for the budget bill carrying her discovery law changes.
That spring both houses unanimously passed his bill setting deadlines for public records requests, S2520B. On Oct. 9, Hochul vetoed it as “unworkable,” one of seven Skoufis bills vetoed that month, according to the Post-Journal. “I guess after all these years, she still doesn’t know who she’s dealing with,” he told Spectrum News, tying the vetoes to his probe of her home care program.
On Oct. 23 he called the vetoes “offensive, childish, and unbecoming, Trump-y behavior,” according to Spectrum News. Hochul’s office said she “evaluates all bills on the merits.” In December she signed his Lt. Joseph Banish Mental Health Act, S6244A, as Chapter 641 of 2025, creating peer support for police. It passed the Senate 61 to 0 with seven Republican co-sponsors. The feud ended by year’s end.
THE CURRENT TERM, 2026
In January 2026 the IDA sued to overturn its monitor’s veto of an $80 million tax break package for an Amazon warehouse. In May the new state budget extended the monitor three years and gave it power to claw back benefits. That month his ticketing overhaul, S8221B, which would cap fees at 25 percent and ban speculative tickets, cleared his committee but remains in Senate Finance.
“It’s going to guarantee that everything will have to go through Ticketmaster and Live Nation,” said Jason Berger of the reseller group Coalition for Ticket Fairness. In June the Senate gave final passage to bills opening some nonprofits to records requests, A173A, and banning car feature subscription fees, A10411A, so both have now cleared both houses.
In July a state judge tossed the IDA’s suit, according to the Rockland County Business Journal. Skoufis called the package “a massive, unwarranted giveaway by any objective standard.” He added, “The decision affirms what we already know: The monitor requested critical information from Amazon.”
THE DISTRICT AND THE PARTY MATH
The 42nd District covers most of Orange County, including Middletown, Warwick, Monroe, Woodbury, Port Jervis, and Cornwall. PagPol could not find official enrollment for the district. NY Focus says it has more registered Republicans than Democrats, though Orange County as a whole had 91,174 enrolled Democrats and 75,383 Republicans this year, according to state Board of Elections figures.
Democrats hold 41 of the Senate’s 63 seats to 22 for Republicans, one short of a two-thirds supermajority, and also control the Assembly and governor’s office. All 63 seats are on the ballot Nov. 3. For another upstate Democratic senator, see PagPol’s profile of Pat Fahy.
Downtown Middletown, the largest city in Skoufis’s 42nd Senate District. (Photo: AlexiusHoratius, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
Skoufis chairs Investigations and Government Operations, which has held hearings on energy prices, ticketing, pharmacy benefit managers, and the state’s home care transition. He also sits on Finance, Judiciary, Labor, Insurance, Local Government, Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, and State-Native American Relations, according to his committee list.
He has said Hochul’s 2025 vetoes were retaliation for that committee’s probe of her home care program, a link her office rejected, saying she judges every bill on its merits. His Finance seat gives him a voice in the budget, where he won the IDA monitor and its extension.
WHY HE RAN AND WHAT HE BELIEVES
Skoufis calls himself center-left and prefers the label “populist.” “I don’t go along to get along,” he told NY Focus in May 2026. He opposed congestion pricing, has not backed statewide sanctuary legislation, and supports modest income tax increases on millionaires. His main cause is cutting what NY Focus estimates is about $10 billion a year in corporate subsidies.
Allies admit his style grates. “His critics aren’t wrong when they say he’s a strident, obnoxious, pain-in-the-ass,” said John Kaehny of Reinvent Albany, who also called him “a tremendous advocate for his constituents.” The New York League of Conservation Voters scored him 100 percent for 2025, according to its NYLCV scorecard.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
Skoufis’s committee, Friends of James Skoufis, said it had more than $1 million on hand in January 2022 and again in July 2023, according to Spectrum News. It had about $501,000 in July 2020 and $725,000 in July 2021. PagPol could not find 2024 or 2026 totals for him, Figueroa, or Blumenthal.
No payments to any 42nd District candidate appear in the state public matching funds distributions PagPol reviewed through Sept. 1, 2026, according to the state’s matching funds board. Nearby, Democrat Lisa Kaul in the 39th District was approved for more than $400,000. PagPol could not identify his top donors.
Friends of James Skoufis cash on hand
Reported balanceReported as more than $1 million
Cash on hand reported by Skoufis’s campaign committee, in thousands of dollars. The 2022 and 2023 bars are drawn at $1 million because the campaign reported only “more than $1 million.” PagPol could not find 2024 or 2026 totals. Source: Spectrum News reporting on state Board of Elections filings.
CONTROVERSIES AND CRITICISM
Beyond the 2018 headline ad, the StarCIO fight remains his most disputed claim. County Attorney Richard Golden said the commissioner “had absolutely nothing to do with the selection of StarCIO,” and the county report cleared officials. Skoufis responded that “law enforcement will be the final arbiter of criminality.” PagPol found no ethics complaints or lawsuits against Skoufis himself.
A SUNY New Paltz professor, Scott Minkoff, questioned his DNC pitch: “He won a swing district, not even in a very high-salience election.” From the left, local tenant groups fault his role in the 2024 good cause eviction deal. From the right, Republican Dorey Houle ran against him in 2022 on the state’s bail and discovery laws.
CLAIMS VERSUS THE RECORD
Skoufis’s claim to fight corporate giveaways holds up locally: he created the IDA monitor, it blocked the Amazon deal, and a court upheld it. His statewide subsidy and ticketing bills have not passed. His transparency claim is mixed, with a FOIL deadline bill vetoed and a nonprofit records bill with no governor’s action found as of October 2026.
He calls himself independent, and he voted against a 2024 budget bill and fought Hochul in public. But he voted for the 2025 budget bill the same day he called her a monarch, and made peace by year’s end. His StarCIO accusations produced a subpoena but, so far, no public charges.
2024 winning margin, Hudson Valley state senators
SkoufisOther Democratic senatorsRepublican senator
Margin in percentage points between each winner and the runner-up in the 2024 general election. Skoufis ran more than 23 points ahead of the top of the Democratic ticket in his district. Source: state Board of Elections certified results.
STATE COMPTROLLER AUDITS IN THE DISTRICT
A May 2025 comptroller Middletown audit found $292,205 in payroll exceptions, including two sewer plant workers paid $91,492 for time they may not have worked. The city disagreed in part. A 2017 comptroller audit of the county IDA found only 55 percent of promised jobs were reported and no benefits were ever clawed back.
An April 2025 follow-up found the Village of Montgomery had fully carried out none of six earlier recommendations, with four not implemented and two partly done, according to the comptroller’s follow-up. PagPol could not confirm whether Montgomery lies in the 42nd District or the neighboring 39th.
Downtown Washingtonville, at the intersection of routes 94 and 208 in southern Orange County. (Photo: Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
LOOKING AHEAD
Skoufis faces Republican Jennifer R. Figueroa and Conservative Joshua Blumenthal on Nov. 3, 2026. PagPol could not find biographical details or fundraising for either challenger. “Please, Kathy Hochul, continue doing things like this and I’m going to win by 60% next election cycle,” he said in October 2025. For more, visit PagPol’s Orange County page or subscribe to the Orange County newsletter.
