Bob Turner, the Republican candidate in the NY-09 special election to replace former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D), is criticizing the new law providing health-care aid to 9/11 rescue workers and volunteers who have suffered health problems from exposure to toxic debris.
“I probably couldn’t go home if I didn’t support the Zadroga bill. I have firemen in my family, but is that bill beyond criticism? No,” said Turner, the New York Daily News reports, referring to the law signed this past January by President Obama. The law is named after the late NYPD Detective James Zadroga, who died of a respiratory illness attributed to his having breathed in toxic dust at the World Trade Center site.
“My call would be to protect police, fire, emergency workers, construction workers, etc,” Turner explained, also adding: “If someone said, ‘I volunteered’ or walked through there, it’s just not the type.”
In response, the paper, reports, 9/11 activist John Feal is blasting Turner’s position. “That day [9/11], and for months after, there were no uniforms. Volunteers worked next to rescue crews for weeks,” said Feal, a former construction supervisor who lost half of his foot at Ground Zero.
Feal also contrasted Turner’s position on the Zadroga law with another key point of Turner’s campaign — that he has made his opposition to the Park51 Muslim community center project near the World Trade Center into a major part of his platform: “For Bob Turner to turn his back on those New Yorkers, but use images of the burning towers in campaign ads – a circus monkey can out-politic Bob Turner, he’s an embarrassment to the Republican Party.”
