A time for change
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Daily Point
Tough season for the GOP
There may not be much cheer around the Thanksgiving table for New York Republicans this year.
The party is emerging from a brutal election on the state level, and 2020 might not be a walk in the park if Donald Trump tops the ticket again.
The Point asked some Long Island and state Republicans to describe the situation for the party and how it might return to state-level power.
“First and foremost, we must appeal to a wider audience,” said Suffolk County GOP chair John Jay LaValle.
The party needs to learn to better speak to women, Hispanic and African-American voters, according to LaValle.
That might mean seeking candidates with broad appeal and access to funds who can chip away at Democrats’ more than 2-1 advantage in state registration.
For Rob Ryan, a longtime Republican consultant who recently worked on Assemb. Nicole Malliotakis’ unsuccessful 2017 campaign for NYC mayor, such a figure might be a “black or Hispanic Arnold Schwarzenegger, or a hugely successful businessman.”
Veteran Long Island lobbyist Desmond Ryan suggests term limits for party leaders to shake things up. He also bemoaned politics as usual in Albany as a turnoff for up-and-comers.
Take Republican State Sen. Thomas Croci of Sayville, who abandoned Albany before the session ended in June and returned to active duty in the U.S. Navy. He had previously served as an intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. His open seat was won by Democrat Monica Martinez.
Ryan says that Croci “said to me personally, ‘I’d rather be doing covert operations in Afghanistan in the military than be sitting in this cesspool.’ ”
Some hope Democrats will mess things up either through chaos or by taking positions too far to the left for suburban voters. State party chair Ed Cox said the November midterms featured voters who were “shocked by the 2016 win. They had their say.”
In 2020, they’ll return to different interests. “This economy has good legs going forward,” Cox says. That could help him if he survives a leadership fight as New York Republicans struggle to chart a future path.
Mark Chiusano
Final Point
King Sweeney sounds off on the Hub
As the potential developers of the Nassau Hub continue meetings with key stakeholders in preparation for a county legislature hearing next week, they know full well that support of the Town of Hempstead is needed to get anything done.
So last week, developer Scott Rechler met with Councilwoman Erin King Sweeney, who had been outspoken regarding her reservations about the project and the process, and whose significant political differences with town Supervisor Laura Gillen are well known. Gillen supports the Hub redevelopment effort.
Former town Supervisor Kate Murray and town board members refused to meet with the developers of the failed Lighthouse Project in 2004. But King Sweeney told The Point she thought discussions between the town and the developers, even early in the process, were important.
“Somehow we all need to be talking to each other,” King Sweeney told The Point.
Earlier this month, King Sweeney sounded a different note, cautioning that the project was far from a “done deal,” telling Long Island Business News she expected the town board could take two years to even make a decision.
“At the Town of Hempstead, nothing should be taken for granted,” she said at the time.
But in her interview with The Point, King Sweeney seemed more optimistic, noting that her meeting with Rechler last week went well.
She said she recognizes the importance of the Hub project and the need to develop the site. She promised that while she wants the process to be followed, “I’m not going to delay anything.”
King Sweeney noted that there were details still to be worked out, such as how the project conforms to town zoning and whether changes to that zone would need to be made, but she added that she recognizes the need to be “flexible.”
The council member, who faces re-election next fall, said there’s community support for development at the Hub. Besides the economic need to develop the site, she sees political ramifications to leaving it barren.
“I want it to succeed,” she said. “If it looks like I’m stalling or playing politics or not having vision, I know I’m going to get blamed for it, and I should . . . I think the town needs to earn the reputation of being committed to progress, and not let anything stand in our way.”
Added King Sweeney, “I think this is our last chance to get this thing right.”
Randi F. Marshall
Talking Point
When the clout is gone
Add yet another issue to the pile of policies bound to be affected by the massive shift in Albany’s political landscape.
The state Department of Education released new details Tuesday on how non-public schools — especially yeshivas — must handle secular education.
The schools have come under scrutiny as some of the private Jewish schools, particularly in New York City, have been accused of insufficient teaching of math, English, social studies, science and other secular subjects — or not teaching them at all. Under the state’s plan, local school districts will be required to review non-public schools to determine whether they provide a “substantially equivalent” education to their public counterparts. That standard includes substantial requirements in teaching English, math, science and social studies. If they don’t meet it, consequences — from pulled funding to eventual closure — could occur.
For decades, yeshivas have been protected and supported by key political players in the state — first by then-State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and, more recently, by Sen. John Flanagan as Senate majority leader. Their biggest advocate was Sen. Simcha Felder, who often would threaten to hold up the state budget until he got concessions on yeshivas.
But Skelos and Silver are gone, convicted of corruption-related charges, and Flanagan will lose the gavel when Democrats take control in January. Meanwhile, Felder, a Democrat who has caucused with Republicans, will be back in Albany — but marginalized now that his vote is not needed by either side.
So, who will yeshivas turn to as their cheerleaders and protectors, especially if local school districts start to crack down?
Neither Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie nor Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the likely Senate majority leader, are likely to fill that role. Meanwhile, State Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr., who has been the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Education Committee, could chair the committee going forward. Addabbo lives in Ozone Park and represents a district that includes several yeshivas, though none of them are on NYC’s list of troubled programs.
But it’s unlikely anyone will go to the lengths Felder did. Back in April, Felder added a last-minute amendment to the budget to protect ultra-Orthodox yeshivas by allowing them to avoid some of the state’s standards and oversight requirements.
Advocates for oversight and standards are clamoring for Democrats to reverse that amendment next year.
Randi F. Marshall