Dems will win back LI in 2024, Gillibrand says

Daily Point

About last month

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said Long Island’s losing Democratic congressional candidates had the right message on jobs, the economy, health care, and education but that voters were angry and frustrated about vaccine and mask mandates and the way COVID changed their lives.

“A lot of Long Island is libertarian,” is how she explained the very red outcome to her colleagues in Washington. But if the defeated Long Island and upstate candidates ran again “they would win in 2024,“ she told the Newsday editorial board this afternoon in a visit to our Melville offices.

Gillibrand made it clear that she is seeking another term in two years, eschewing another presidential run, and that she supports President Joe Biden for a second term. “I intend to run for reelection and win the state back along with Long Island,” she said.

Does she expect a primary challenge from the left? “I don’t know, I don’t think so but if I do, I will meet that challenge.” Gillibrand went on to say she is very progressive in the bills she has passed, citing protection for sexual harassment in the military and funding for universal child care.

New York’s junior senator described her work to protect the nation from cybersecurity risks but said there was little the federal government could do in situations like Suffolk County’s devastating hack. “They didn’t even practice good cyber-hygiene,” she said, prompting her to recall her own mistakes. In a recent routine check for phishing emails, Gillibrand said she clicked on a phony one, thinking the message was from her chief of staff.

Because of Republican opposition, Gillibrand is doubtful that any changes in the SALT deduction will happen before it expires in 2025. “What SALT has shown us,” she offered, “is that New York should lower their taxes.” Noting that she was not in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s shoes, she said “as a taxpayer and listening to a lot of New Yorkers, I think we need middle class tax relief.”

— Rita Ciolli @ritaciolli

Talking Point

Behind the partisan lines

Even a matter so local as Nassau County’s legislative districts becomes a setting these days for the nation’s roaring partisan battles.

Seeking to discredit a proposed Republican map for the Nassau Legislature, Democrats on the county’s redistricting panel are slamming the use by their GOP of a University of Maryland-based consultant — who’s been associated with a right-leaning group that takes a hard line on immigration.

Political science professor James Gimpel recently submitted a three-page report endorsing the legality and fairness of the Republican district lines at the suggestion of the GOP side of the county’s bipartisan Temporary Redistricting Advisory Commission.

The panel’s leading Democrat, former Legis. David Mejias and his colleagues offer several objections to presenting Gimpel as an expert. For one, he’s a frequent contributor to information put out by the Center for Immigration Studies, which the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center calls “the go-to think tank for the anti-immigrant movement” which at times has given a platform to “white nationalists.”

Also, Maryland’s Democratic attorney general found that Gimpel’s participation in several unrelated redistricting cases “consistently showed him to be an advocate for pro-Republican, extreme partisan gerrymandering,” according to a court memo cited by Mejias.

Contacted for response, the commission’s Republican chairman Frank Moroney told The Point on Monday that Gimpel’s resume shows “substantial” credentials. He reviewed the districts drawn up for the Nassau GOP by the firm Skyline Consulting. The party defends the plan as meeting the latest requirements of the state’s Municipal Home Rule Law.

Next the different partisan sides on the panel are expected to submit reports to the legislature, which has a GOP majority that will keep the upper hand in approving the map. Litigation is still seen as a distinct possibility.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison

Pencil Point

Get out!

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Final Point

No quorum a quandary for NUMC

The Nassau University Medical Center board meeting scheduled for Dec. 7 never garnered a quorum, and so technically it did not happen.  Both Republicans and Democrats say the non-meeting stems from a continuation of the political turmoil that has rocked the board in the year since County Executive Bruce Blakeman defeated Laura Curran, and appointed Matt Bruderman as chair.

But they disagree as to which side set this latest skirmish off.

A few hours before the meeting, Democratic member Jason Abelove, who has clashed with Bruderman repeatedly, sent an email to Margaret Lowe, who organizes the meetings as legal assistant to general counsel Meg Ryan.

The email said several members were unable to attend the meeting, “which you were advised of and ignored when you scheduled it,” and added that “Accordingly, Lisa, Ann, Jan, Kim, Ajit, Soraya and myself are unable to attend.”

That’s every member appointed by Democrats, and exactly half of the evenly split board.

Bruderman told The Point he had been informed that Nassau County Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs ordered all his members to skip the meeting once it was clear the Republicans would have a big majority and the meeting would not be rescheduled.

Kayman actually did show up, as did Republican members, but without a quorum the meeting never gaveled in.

Abelove himself had always contended he had a conflict, but Ryan and Bruderman said that’s normal, and it’s often difficult to set a time when every single person on a large board is free.

Bruderman told The Point he had been informed that Nassau County Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs ordered all his members to skip the meeting once it was clear the Republicans would have a clear voting majority and the meeting would not be rescheduled.

But Jacobs said that’s not the case, and that he only told them “they had to stick together as a group” if Bruderman was intentionally scheduling meetings the Democrats could not attend.

For better or worse, most NUMC business can be done by the hospital’s executive committee, and has been for much of the past year in which few meetings have been held.

One issue on the December meeting agenda that does require a board quorum: 

Changing the bylaws, which now require a minimum of 10 meetings a year, to reduce the timing to quarterly.

— Lane Filler @lanefiller