As D'Esposito fights off scrutiny of his hiring, Dems step up ground game in CD4

Daily Point

NYS Dem top guns put the emphasis on downballot races 

Even before the spotlight on CD4 turned to a glare this week after the disclosure that Rep. Anthony D’Esposito has been accused of giving both his girlfriend and the daughter of his longtime fiancee jobs in his House district office, the race already was getting plenty of attention.

One reason for the Democrats’ hope that Laura Gillen can pick up the seat is the high party registration in the district and President Joe Biden’s success there four years ago. Their fear is that Democrats will turn out for the presidential race but ignore the downballot races.

That explains why House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Rep. Gregory Meeks, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Tom Suozzi all came to the Garden City Hotel last month to join Gillen in speaking with more than 100 clergy members about the get-out-the-vote effort, not only for Vice President Kamala Harris, but for Gillen, too.

"There’s a lot of people working on that," Suozzi told The Point, noting the August gathering. "We talked about why it was so important for Laura Gillen to win."

The Democrats may have been looking to make a statement by gathering in a spot once considered a Republican bastion. Coming off their 2021 election victories, Republicans held their 2022 nominating convention at the Garden City Hotel, which was at one time Nassau GOP headquarters. The presence of Hochul, Meeks, and Jeffries, who could become Speaker of the House if flippable seats like CD4 come to fruition, added gravitas to Gillen's efforts, too.

"This was a great opportunity to really showcase the strength of the campaign and her relationships, and to have these incredible validators stand with her," said a source with knowledge of the meeting and the Gillen campaign.

Meeks, who once represented parts of what is now CD4, has shown up multiple times in the district to support Gillen, even participating in the opening of some of her offices. And Jeffries’ presence shows the race’s place on the national stage, the source told The Point.

"Democrats truly see this seat as a must win to retake the House majority, and they also see it as one they can win," the source said. "It’s really about making sure the proper outreach is done, that everyone feels the gravity of this election and how important it is and understands their role in how they can flip this seat."

Local clergy, the source said, attended in their "personal capacity," and play a key role in their personal connections to — and influence in — the communities that need to come out to vote in order for Gillen to win.

Whether the newly reported D’Esposito payroll patronage story makes a dent in the final outcome remains to be seen. But it wouldn’t be a surprise if Gillen continues to lure the big guns, including Jeffries, into making another appearance in CD4 before Election Day.

"Everyone knows this is a must win," one source said.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

The optimist

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Reference Point

When price controls proved costly

Vice President Kamala Harris’ vow to attack price gouging as a contributor to inflation has raised the specter of price controls. Many Long Islanders have not-so-fond memories of President Richard Nixon’s executive order in 1971 freezing wages and prices for 90 days to combat inflation.

But Newsday’s editorial board confronted the issue long before that — in 1946, when congressional legislation that authorized World War II price controls lapsed and prices for meat rose dramatically. That led the National Office of Price Administration to roll back prices to their level in April 1943.

In a Sept. 26, 1946 editorial titled "Meat, Drink — and Be Merry," the board wrote that "the result is that the guy who runs Joe’s Hash House is expected to sell his steaks and chops to the hungry wayfarer, all done to a turn and with a glass of water, for less than he pays the butcher (if he can find the steaks and chops.)"

The parenthetical phrase was a reference to the response to the new price limits by livestock ranchers, who started to withhold their meat from the market. That created new shortages of meat that, the board wrote, "brings to absurdity the whole comedy in cutlets staged by the Washington masterminds."

With "plenty of meat on the hoof out West," the board wrote, the situation would not change until prices controls were discontinued or the black market somehow responded to get meat to consumers who could pay for it. This "butcher-shop chaos," as the board termed it, was causing consumers to "grow more and more resentful of shortages and the blackmarket by-product of shortages."

"The Washington masterminds, even since their early Wallace era, have done so much monkeying with the laws of supply and demand, that by now they must have tried all the screwball theories in the New Deal book of economics," the board wrote. "It’s about time we tried something more normal for a change."

By the time of the editorial, meat production had fallen more than 80% from the previous year as ranchers and other meat sellers also sought to punish Democrats in midterm elections in November and end price controls once and for all. The strategy worked. Democrats suffered big losses in what sometimes are called the "beefsteak elections" and control of Congress reverted to Republicans for the first time since the early 1930s.

President Harry Truman terminated price controls on Nov. 9, four days after the election, and the nation returned to the "something more normal" situation sought by Newsday’s board. And in 1947, inflation soared to more than 20%.

— Michael Dobie michael.dobie@newsday.com

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