Registering the Jewish vote in CD4

Daily Point

Five Towns GOTV drive could matter in CD4

A national nonprofit organization that for years has been focused on supporting Orthodox Jewish communities and schools in the U.S. is preparing to help boost voter turnout in Nassau County’s Five Towns. On Friday, the Teach Coalition is due to open what it calls a "Long Island Unites" center at a location on Chestnut Street in Cedarhurst.

When asked about the goals involved, Maury Litwack, the coalition’s founder and chief executive, explained it as a partisan-neutral effort to get out the vote in Jewish communities as carried out in other counties and states. Litwack said it would help people understand how to register, and how to get and use absentee ballots if desired.

Litwack said voting interest was heightened in those communities by the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel and by subsequent antisemitic incidents in the U.S. Within the Democratic Party, the organization set up "Westchester Unites" that increased Jewish turnout when Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a critic of Israel and supporter of the Palestinian cause, was defeated for the nomination by Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who garnered pro-Israel support.

That district includes White Plains, Mount Vernon, Yonkers, New Rochelle, and Rye. TEACH calculates 15,000 Jewish voters turned out in that primary, in which there was a nearly 13,000-vote difference.

The heavily Orthodox Jewish Five Towns comprises a part of the 4th Congressional District where Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito is seeking a second term in what’s anticipated to be a close race against Democratic former Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen. The seat is targeted by the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

An ally of D’Esposito expressed hope that maximizing the Five Towns vote would help the GOP candidate who has worked to make inroads and alliances there. The D’Esposito supporter said the incumbent has been simpatico in the Five Towns on matters of antisemitism and U.S. support for Israel.

Gillen campaign manager Sarah Carlson told The Point: "Laura has a pro-Israel track record and just recently released a plan to address antisemitism. In Congress, she will be a strong advocate for the Jewish community in NY-04."

Meanwhile, Gillen has condemned a D’Esposito mailer with the message "follow the money" that cited $6,600 in contributions to her campaign from members of the wealthy family of left-leaning Jewish billionaire George Soros. Democrats have protested that using his image fuels antisemitic tropes from the right. The Jewish Forward reported on the mailer Thursday.

CD4 includes numerous other communities — including Elmont, Garden City, Hempstead, Long Beach, Valley Stream, New Hyde Park, Uniondale, Wantagh and others — where campaigning in that race is due to intensify down the stretch to Election Day.

A poll by the Honan Strategy Group from early last month circulated by the Teach Coalition listed numbers of "probable Jewish voters" for November in what are considered six "swing" congressional districts for November 2024. In CD4, the total calculated was 51,291.

How identifiably Jewish voters trend across both major parties will be closely watched by political observers as the days count down.

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

Pencil Point

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Reference Point

The bumpy road to 'good government' in Suffolk

Good governance at all levels of elected office has been a recurring theme for Newsday’s editorial board. That should be no surprise given the problems Long Island has had with the issue over the years.

One such situation was festering in 1957, when the Suffolk Board of Supervisors tried for a third time to get around state concerns that a new county charter proposed by the board would violate principles of representative government.

"The latest bit of skulduggery in suffering Suffolk County would make everyone interested in good government fighting mad — if it were not so ridiculous," the board wrote in a Sept. 12, 1957 piece called "Foolish Little Men."

"Twice the Suffolk Board of Supervisors has come up with milk-and-water charters devoted to its personal welfare and not the county’s. Twice Governor Harriman has vetoed the charters because they provided for the appointment of a puppet county executive who would dance to the corrupt tune of the supervisors."

At that point, the Board of Supervisors had governed Suffolk for more than 270 years. The board comprised the elected supervisors of Suffolk’s 10 towns and each had an equal vote, leading to unequal representation for towns like Shelter Island, which had a population of 1,144 in 1950, and Babylon, which had more than 45,000 people.

A prominent citizens group organized a committee to produce a new charter with a new structure of government. Facing an existential threat, the Board of Supervisors offered a new proposal "that is as obvious as an elephant hiding behind a peanut," Newsday’s board wrote. "What the board proposes is tantamount to putting a messenger boy behind the executive’s desk. He might look important, but he would still be running errands."

The new official — called the county coordinator — would have no vote and no authority. Newsday’s board termed the idea "contradictory to the stand taken by the advocates of good government" and said the position "would be just as inept as an executive dangling at the end of the supervisors’ strings."

The board’s derision was echoed in the accompanying editorial cartoon which depicted a man labeled "BOARD OF SUPERVISORS" carrying a baby holding a balloon labeled "COUNTY COORDINATOR" while the Suffolk duck looks on with an alarmed expression. The title of the drawing: "Yessir, That’s My Baby."

Resolution was more than a decade away. In 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court considered equal representation in elections in Gray v. Sanders and formulated the famous "one person, one vote" standard. Suffolk’s board was considered a blatant exception; by that time, Babylon’s population had grown to 250,000 while Shelter Island had 1,500, yet both were represented with one vote on Suffolk’s board. After the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that the board reapportion itself in 1968, it voted to create an 18-person legislature. County voters approved the measure that November, though East End residents rejected it, touching off a secession movement.

The new county lawmakers were elected in 1969 and sworn into office in January 1970, ending one episode of bad governance on Long Island. Others, alas, awaited.

— Michael Dobie michael.dobie@newsday.com

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