Beckham to 'spice up' LIA luncheon

Daily Point

Soccer star, a Sands ambassador, to speak at local event

The Long Island Association will Bend it Like Beckham next month, as the region’s largest business group will host soccer icon David Beckham as its fall luncheon speaker, The Point has learned.

Beckham, who retired as a player in 2013 and co-owns Major League Soccer team Inter Miami CF, is a global brand ambassador for Las Vegas Sands, which holds the lease on the Nassau Hub and plans to bid for one of three available downstate gaming licenses.

According to LIA chief executive Matt Cohen, Beckham is speaking at the LIA lunch “through the relationship he has with Sands,” which is a sponsor of the lunch. The LIA will not be paying Beckham a speaker’s fee, but it plans to make a donation to a charity, potentially one with a soccer focus, in his honor, Cohen said.

This is the first time the LIA is hosting an in-person fall luncheon since 2019.

In May, the LIA board of directors voted to back Sands’ proposal to develop the Nassau Hub into a casino resort, with a caveat that recognized concerns that still had to be addressed. Conversations about the possibility of featuring Beckham at the lunch did not begin until late July, months after the LIA vote and the decision by the Nassau County Legislature to approve the lease transfer to Sands.

But Cohen said the LIA’s work with Sands goes beyond the lease transfer or the vote taken by the association.

“I think since Day One, Sands has demonstrated a genuine commitment to investing in our community, in showing that they don’t want to just be a visitor here, but a partner, and they have invested a lot of time and money into supporting Long Island,” Cohen told The Point. “Whenever we have a company that’s not based on Long Island or even based in New York, and they want to invest this type of effort, energy and capital into our region, we should welcome that.”

The luncheon, scheduled for Oct. 13 at the Crest Hollow Country Club, will mark Beckham’s second visit to Long Island this year, as he also attended a Sands youth soccer event in March.

Beckham won't be bringing his Miami star — Lionel Messi, generally regarded as the world's best player — to the LIA event, but Cohen says he is getting questioned frequently about another Beckham-related icon:

Will his wife, Victoria, perhaps best known as Posh Spice, be in attendance?

“I do not believe his wife is joining him, although I’m still pushing for a Spice Girls concert,” Cohen said.

Perhaps that’ll be the LIA’s spring event.

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

Pencil Point

Till debt do us part

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Final Point

Reading between the lines of NY's congressional districts

Future control of the House of Representatives will likely pass through New York and especially Long Island, yet it is still unclear whether the boundary lines of the state’s congressional districts will be redrawn for the 2024 elections.

An incredibly high-stakes case between Democrats and Republicans that will greatly influence who controls the gavel is currently before the state’s top court with each procedural fight tightening the intensity. In an especially succinct, if not cryptic, order Tuesday on an intramural issue, a unanimous Court of Appeals provided a few bread crumbs of information but mostly didn’t tip its hand.

Some context: On Nov. 15, the court will hear arguments on whether a new map detailing the boundaries of the state’s 26 congressional districts should be drawn. The Democrat-controlled State Legislature so badly gerrymandered the districts in 2022 that Republicans were successful in getting the map declared unconstitutional. The top court also cleared the way for an appointed redistricting expert to create fairer maps, removing control of the process from the legislature.

But after Democrats suffered big losses in New York, heavily contributing to the party losing the gavel in Washington, a legal fight began to revisit the 2022 ruling on the grounds that the courts never said whether the maps were for the entirety of the decade or just for one term in office. After a fierce battle in the Democrat-controlled State Senate earlier this year, progressives retooled the Court of Appeals to their liking in the hopes of getting a more favorable ruling the second time around. The party recently had a big win in the appellate division in Albany, which ordered a new map to be created.

Then there was the case within the case, which is what Tuesday’s court action was about. Since a ruling from the top court is unlikely before the end of the year, Democrats contended that the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission could at least get started on drawing new maps. Republicans countered that the IRC was barred from doing so, saying the appeal froze the process until a final decision by the top court.

The Court of Appeals split the baby. It agreed with the Republicans that a stay was in place and that the IRC could not take any official action, essentially preserving the status quo. However, the court also said the IRC was not barred from doing any work, which means the commission members can meet, perhaps make plans for hearings, and otherwise prepare for the process of drawing new maps.

That opening of the door could be significant because delays only hurt the Democrats in choosing candidates, raising money, and planning campaign strategies. The party has set its sights on challenging several first-term GOP incumbents such as Long Island’s George Santos and Anthony D’Esposito as well as Mike Lawler in the Hudson Valley. Currently, March 1 is the date House candidates can start circulating petitions for a June primary.

Jeffrey Wice, a redistricting expert at New York Law School, said the ruling helps the Democrats. “It provides a window of opportunity for the commission to develop a new map,” he said. “To avoid delaying the next year’s primary, a new map would have to be approved by the legislature and signed by the governor by next February,” he said.

But such a spare ruling can be open to many interpretations.

“We were pleased that the court did not lift the stay on the lower court’s decision,” said attorney and former congressman John Faso, who is spearheading the GOP’s effort to keep the 2022 maps in place. “If they were determined to uphold the appellate division decision, they would have likely lifted the stay but to get unanimity among the seven judges, they kept the stay but said the IRC could work if they wanted.”

— Rita Ciolli rita.ciolli@newsday.com

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