Brooks back in the 5th State Senate District race

Daily Point

Brooks once more into the breach

State Sen. John Brooks, who says he’s been shaken by the massacre at an Uvalde, Texas elementary school and urged by activists, colleagues of both parties, and lobbyists to try to return to Albany next year, has decided to jump back into the race for the 5th District, he told The Point Thursday.

The third-term Seaford Democrat announced last week that, thanks largely to the way his district has been redrawn, he would not seek reelection.

“It was never really that I thought I couldn’t win,” Brooks said, though he acknowledges the new lines make for a tougher run. “It was honestly that this new district is so oddly drawn, running more north-to-south and less along the water, that I’m losing many of the communities where what I have fought for mattered most, and picking some up that have different compositions, and needs.”

Nassau County Legis. Steve Rhoads has been named by the Republican Party as its pick.

Newly added to the district are Hicksville, Bethpage and Levittown. One of Brooks’ Albany passions is a plan to cap residential property taxes at 50% of school budgets to aid districts with little commercial property, with the state picking up the difference. That goal may not be as high a priority in those three areas with significantly more retail as it was in some of the communities now removed from the district, like Massapequa, Copiague, Wyandanch, and Wheatley Heights.

Brooks said that while he’d received a lot of gratifying encouragement to try to stick around, what moved him the most was the urgings of Linda Beigel Schulman, whose son, Scott Beigel, a teacher, was murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Brooks said he has worked closely with Schulman on gun regulations such as the state’s Red Flag Gun Protection Bill starting soon after the Parkland killings, and the two have often shared podiums at events to urge action.

And Nassau County and state Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs said he’s ecstatic that Brooks is back in. “Listen, I’ve been urging John to run this race since he told me he wasn’t,” Jacobs said. “He’s a great candidate. I do understand why he was leaving, but I think the opportunity to do more to fight these tragedies really changed his mind.”

“We have not done all we could do on gun regulation,” Brooks said, “but we also are not being sensible, and in some cases this is people in my own party, about keeping dangerous people locked up and making sure they don’t hurt anyone.”

— Lane Filler @lanefiller

Talking Point

Albany Democrats’ last-minute play could upend local politics

The end of this year’s state legislative session is less than a week away, a time when important bills are sprung upon an unsuspecting public.

Senate and Assembly Democrats are pushing a vote on a bill, perhaps as early as Tuesday, that would move all county and town elections from odd-numbered years to even ones. That would routinely put them on the same ballot as presidential, gubernatorial, and state and federal legislative races, which Democrats say promotes turnout. Republicans say it’s an abomination.

“This is something we’ve been working on for years,” said state Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs of the bill being carried by Rockland County Sen. James Skoufis and Westchester Assemb. Amy Paulin. “If you want more people to vote, we see that in odd-year local elections turnout varies between 24%-31%, while even-year participation runs in the 40s in gubernatorial years and the 60s in presidential years.”

And, Jacobs conceded, although turnout is higher in even years for all political parties, Democratic turnout particularly surges, as does minority participation. To him, the possibility of boosting the election success and participation of minorities is a clear goal. Jacobs, who is also the Nassau party chairman, suffered devastating defeats in last year's local races for county executive and district attorney.

Jacobs noted the exclusion of New York City and other cities is because much of their governance is rooted in the state’s constitution: “We might well look at that at some point, but we’re not moving to change the constitution right now.”

To Republicans, eliminating the odd-year elections is absolute anathema. For a party which often fares poorly with minority voters, it’s a manipulation.

“This is an attempt to disenfranchise voters pure and simple, by assuring that the important issues that decide local elections are lost in the media spotlight of presidential, gubernatorial and congressional races,” said Suffolk County Republican Party chairman Jesse Garcia. “This is nothing but another attempt by the Democratic supermajority to steal races by seeing to it that local issues are lost in the jetwash of high-profile races.”

Republicans outperforming Democrats in local races in New York has been a consistent trend for decades.

State Republican Party chairman Nick Langworthy, in a statement, added: “This outrageous legislation is a consolation prize after their illegal gerrymander was resoundingly defeated by the courts.”

— Lane Filler @lanefiller

Pencil Point

Slow on the draw

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Reference Point

Decades of tax returns drama

Some efforts in American politics seem positively Sisyphean in that the goal seems ever more elusive no matter the striving — in the manner of the doomed Greek mythological figure condemned by the gods to roll a huge stone uphill, only to have it roll back down to the bottom every time he neared the top.

So we are reminded with a perusal of Newsday’s editorials this month back in 1971. Ronald Reagan was governor of California and he was complaining that reporters were invading his privacy by asking too many questions about the fact that he paid no state income tax in 1970. The matter had a culture-war flavor about it, to which Newsday’s editorial board added a reference to the principles of respect, honor and honesty espoused by King Arthur and his Round Table knights.

“It is ironic,” the board wrote, “that the governor would guard his business affairs so closely when he has urged legislation that would make the tax returns of social service clients available to the California department of welfare. If the underprivileged are expected to adhere to an Arthurian code of honesty and openness, Mr. Reagan could do the same.”

The board said the real import of the conflict was the reminder of “unjust and inequitable loopholes” in the tax code that help the rich and hurt the poor. It noted an analysis by then-Rep. Henry D. Reuss (D-Wis.) that found 301 people with incomes above $200,000 who paid no U.S. income tax in 1969 — an early precursor to more recent findings about huge corporations paying no income taxes. The tax code, the board concluded, “should be tightened immediately.”

“Politicians anxious to protect public funds might, for a change, set their sights on the top rather than the bottom of the economic order,” the board wrote. “For, while there has been much complaining about government aid to the poor, almost nothing has been said about public assistance to the rich.”

Plenty has been said in the intervening 51 years, of course, about fairly taxing the rich. But that particular rock is still near the bottom of the hill.

— Michael Dobie @mwdobie and Amanda Fiscina @adfiscina

Programming Point

The Point will be back on Tuesday, May 31. Happy Memorial Day.