Suburban Warfare
Amid GOP claims that they would harm non-city residents, Democrats make their appeal
Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:23:00
ONE MAJOR TALKING point among Republicans this fall is that a Democratic majority in the Senate would be bad for suburban New Yorkers. With the governor, attorney general and Assembly speaker all living in Manhattan, putting Queens' Malcolm Smith in charge of the Senate would remove the suburbs' last advocate. (Thomas DiNapoli, who represented Nassau County in the Assembly for 20 years before being appointed comptroller, is generally ignored by the Republicans discussing state power distribution.)
The thrust of the strategy is to convince voters that if Democrats win the State Senate, they will promote the interests of New York City, where most of their members hail from, as well as other cities throughout the state, like Buffalo and Rochester, and perhaps upstate New York, as a gesture to rural communities.
The suburbs, Republicans are arguing, will be left in the lurch.
"We're talking about different constituencies and different needs," said State Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Suffolk). "The cities would be disproportionately favored."
LaValle pointed to the cuts made during the latest special session in Albany as evidence of this imbalance. Gov. David Paterson (D), he said, wanted to cut $51 million from the City University of New York's budget, while cutting $97 million from the State University of New York's budget.
Under Republican control, the Senate has fought for school aid for suburban and rural communities, said LaValle, who chairs the Higher Education Committee.
Even some Assembly Democrats have expressed skepticism about Senate Democrats' commitment to the suburbs.
Assembly Member Harvey Weisenberg (D-Nassau) predicted Republicans would hold onto the majority for a few more years. He said that over his 30-year career in state government, he has seen Republicans fighting for their constituents and Democrats fighting for theirs. The only difference is what district each legislator represents, he said.
"We in Albany are in a geographical struggle for resources," Weisenberg said. "You have to acknowledge what they have provided."
Come November, he said, voters need to choose those candidates that have been proven successful in advocating for their constituents. And in the suburbs, those candidates happen to be Republican, he added.
"Geographically, if we have New York City running the Senate, the governor and the Assembly, the suburbs could be in a difficult situation," Weisenberg said.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who represents Nassau, has led the charge among Republicans making this argument, insisting that the suburbs will naturally get a smaller share of the state's limited resources without the Republicans in charge to protect them.
According to GOP State Sen. Kenneth LaValle, who represents parts of Long Island, the
Democrats have neither the knowledge nor the interest among their senators to look out
for the suburbs. Photo By: Barry Sloan
Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, however, said that this is exactly the mentality that has caused the state's current budget crisis.
"It's unfortunate that he says that, only because he's actually talking about the way Republicans manage. That's the problem, probably leading to this problem today, because that's how they think: 'You know what, I'm only going to this small piece here.' We don't think that way-this is One New York," Smith said, employing the Democratic slogan.
Smith insisted that Skelos and the Republicans are mired in what he called 18th-century thinking of simply protecting their political base, as opposed to him and the Senate Democrats, who believe the only way for any part of New York to survive is to focus on getting people to move back into all parts of the state.
"This requires a competent and holistic plan-not one of his short-sightedness only because that's how he thinks and manages. It never even crossed my mind to think about taking care of one part of the state, but the fact that he even raised that tells me that it's time for him to move on, it really is," Smith said. "It's a sad way of thinking."
And anyway, Senate Democrats charge, the Republicans have not been so great for the suburbs.
Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester), who won her suburban district from Republicans in 2006, said that suburban communities could expect to see a lot of their concerns on the legislative agenda, such as brownfield clean-up, hospital funding and increased funding for schools, if Democrats take the majority.
"Certainly a Democratic leadership would provide no less," Stewart-Cousins said, "and I would dare say even more."
Her fellow suburban Democrat, Craig Johnson (D-Nassau), attempted to turn the GOP criticism back on them.
"What's been clear to me for the past 18 months is that the number-one patron for the Senate Republicans has been Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City," said Johnson, in reference to the millions of dollars Bloomberg has poured into the Senate Republican Campaign Committee over the years.
Republicans have been using the property tax cap proposal as fodder, saying Senate Democrats would be as deaf to suburban issues as their cohorts in the Assembly who killed the proposal. But Johnson views the issue from a different angle.
"It's under their watch that property taxes have gone sky-high," Johnson said.
By adopting a moderate position on government spending, Johnson believes, Senate Democrats can provide for the suburbs in ways Republicans never have.
"The Senate Republican majority has clearly been spending money in the state like a drunken sailor," Johnson said. "It's clear to me that what it's going to take is fiscal discipline from Senate Democrats to restore stability to our state."
The thrust of the strategy is to convince voters that if Democrats win the State Senate, they will promote the interests of New York City, where most of their members hail from, as well as other cities throughout the state, like Buffalo and Rochester, and perhaps upstate New York, as a gesture to rural communities.
The suburbs, Republicans are arguing, will be left in the lurch.
"We're talking about different constituencies and different needs," said State Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Suffolk). "The cities would be disproportionately favored."
LaValle pointed to the cuts made during the latest special session in Albany as evidence of this imbalance. Gov. David Paterson (D), he said, wanted to cut $51 million from the City University of New York's budget, while cutting $97 million from the State University of New York's budget.Under Republican control, the Senate has fought for school aid for suburban and rural communities, said LaValle, who chairs the Higher Education Committee.
Even some Assembly Democrats have expressed skepticism about Senate Democrats' commitment to the suburbs.
Assembly Member Harvey Weisenberg (D-Nassau) predicted Republicans would hold onto the majority for a few more years. He said that over his 30-year career in state government, he has seen Republicans fighting for their constituents and Democrats fighting for theirs. The only difference is what district each legislator represents, he said.
"We in Albany are in a geographical struggle for resources," Weisenberg said. "You have to acknowledge what they have provided."
Come November, he said, voters need to choose those candidates that have been proven successful in advocating for their constituents. And in the suburbs, those candidates happen to be Republican, he added.
"Geographically, if we have New York City running the Senate, the governor and the Assembly, the suburbs could be in a difficult situation," Weisenberg said.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who represents Nassau, has led the charge among Republicans making this argument, insisting that the suburbs will naturally get a smaller share of the state's limited resources without the Republicans in charge to protect them.
According to GOP State Sen. Kenneth LaValle, who represents parts of Long Island, the
Democrats have neither the knowledge nor the interest among their senators to look out
for the suburbs. Photo By: Barry Sloan
Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, however, said that this is exactly the mentality that has caused the state's current budget crisis.
"It's unfortunate that he says that, only because he's actually talking about the way Republicans manage. That's the problem, probably leading to this problem today, because that's how they think: 'You know what, I'm only going to this small piece here.' We don't think that way-this is One New York," Smith said, employing the Democratic slogan.
Smith insisted that Skelos and the Republicans are mired in what he called 18th-century thinking of simply protecting their political base, as opposed to him and the Senate Democrats, who believe the only way for any part of New York to survive is to focus on getting people to move back into all parts of the state.
"This requires a competent and holistic plan-not one of his short-sightedness only because that's how he thinks and manages. It never even crossed my mind to think about taking care of one part of the state, but the fact that he even raised that tells me that it's time for him to move on, it really is," Smith said. "It's a sad way of thinking."
And anyway, Senate Democrats charge, the Republicans have not been so great for the suburbs.
Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester), who won her suburban district from Republicans in 2006, said that suburban communities could expect to see a lot of their concerns on the legislative agenda, such as brownfield clean-up, hospital funding and increased funding for schools, if Democrats take the majority.
"Certainly a Democratic leadership would provide no less," Stewart-Cousins said, "and I would dare say even more."
Her fellow suburban Democrat, Craig Johnson (D-Nassau), attempted to turn the GOP criticism back on them.
"What's been clear to me for the past 18 months is that the number-one patron for the Senate Republicans has been Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City," said Johnson, in reference to the millions of dollars Bloomberg has poured into the Senate Republican Campaign Committee over the years.
Republicans have been using the property tax cap proposal as fodder, saying Senate Democrats would be as deaf to suburban issues as their cohorts in the Assembly who killed the proposal. But Johnson views the issue from a different angle.
"It's under their watch that property taxes have gone sky-high," Johnson said.
By adopting a moderate position on government spending, Johnson believes, Senate Democrats can provide for the suburbs in ways Republicans never have.
"The Senate Republican majority has clearly been spending money in the state like a drunken sailor," Johnson said. "It's clear to me that what it's going to take is fiscal discipline from Senate Democrats to restore stability to our state."
