Primaries-- Against Long Island Incumbents

Yesterday we took a look at some of the prospective 2020 Democratic congressional primaries in New York City, based on a NY Times piece by Shane Goldmacher. I promised to finish up today with a look at the two possible Long Island primaries. I'll describe both. NY-03 is the North Shore district that starts in Suffolk County around Kings Park and Commack, heads west through Huntington, and into Nassau County towns like Oyster Bay, Hicksville, Glen Cove and Great Neck, winding up in northeast Queens (Douglaston and Beechhurst) ending at Alexandria Ocasio's district. It's a pretty affluent district (3rd wealthiest in the country with a $101,695 medium income) and a D+1 PVI. Obama won twice and Hillary beat Trump 51.6% to 45.5%. The district is 73% white, 13% Asian, 9% Latino and 3% Black. It's Steve Israel's old district and the current congressman, Tom Suozzi, is the former Nassau County Executive.

In 2016, when Israel retired, Suozzi decisively won a crowded primary and went on to beat Republican Jack Martins 53-47%. In 2018, there was no primary challenger and Suozzi has no problem in the general, beating Republican Dan DeBono 157,456 (59%) to 109,514 (41%).

Unlike Israel, Suozzi didn't join the ultra-reactionary Blue Dogs. Instead he signed up with the less reactionary New Dems. Goldmacher highlights his membership in the "bipartisan [albeit misleadingly named] Problem Solvers Caucus," and explains that he "has angered progressive activists, including on immigration, after he went on Fox and Friends last summer to embrace 'some physical structures on the border' and defend the Immigration and Customs and Enforcement agency. This is ironic, single Suozzi-- despite his conservatism some things, is pretty much considered a super-star when it comes to progressive immigration policy.

In 1994, as Mayor of Glen Cove, Suozzi created one of the first day laborer centers on the East Coast. When he was honored by the New York Immigration Coalition (for creating an environment of welcome and inclusion for immigrants in Nassau County) in 2011, he told the audience that "Those men who were standing on the street corner looking for work back in 1994 are the same men who now have their own businesses as landscapers and contractors. They have bought their own homes. Their children are now going to the same public schools as my children. They are living the American Dream... What ICE officials were doing [massive raids] was wrong. [He asked the audience to put themselves in the place of immigrant children] "who saw ICE come bursting through the door in the middle of the night, some of them carrying shotguns, to take away members of their family. Do you think that child will ever trust law enforcement again? This issue has become an excuse for racism in this country and we have to constantly work to persuade people that we are talking about human beings and their lives. We have a lot more work to do together. We have a lot of people to convince."

So... someone may want to primary Suozzi for being too conservative or not progressive enough... but immigration is the wrong issue. And so is anything to do with Climate Change. He quickly offered to co-sponsor AOC's GreenNewDeal resolution.

Goldmacher asserts that "some on the left have encouraged Robert Zimmerman, a D.N.C. member who lives in the district and once ran for Congress in the early 1980s, to challenge Mr. Suozzi from the left. Zimmerman, 64, did not rule out a run as he slammed Mr. Suozzi as a 'Trump sympathizer' in an interview. 'I understand it’s unusual,' Mr. Zimmerman said of a party official attacking his local congressman. 'It’s more unusual to have a member not stand up for mainstream Democratic principles.' Friends and relatives of mine in the district laughed at the idea of Zimmerman being encouraged by "some on the left." One told me that whatever I may think of Suozzi, Zimmerman is just an opportunist and careerist hack with nothing to offer.

South of Suozzi's district is Kathleen Rice's-- NY-04. It's where I grew up (Valley Stream and then Roosevelt) and it's entirely within Nassau County. It goes from Westbury, Garden City, Mineola and Floral Park through Hempstead, Freeport, Rockville Centre, Lynbrook and East Roackaway down to Jones Beach, Long Beach and the Five Towns. The PVI is D+4 and Obama and Hillary both won by low double digits. It's the 14th most affluent congressional district in America. Demographically it's 60.5% white, 17.7% Latino, 14% Black and 6% Asian.

Rice was always a very right-wing Democrat who made a career by prosecuting poor people. She's been a horrible careerist and Wall Street shill for her whole career and a nightmare New Dem in Congress. There are several Democrats considering primary challenges. Goldmacher wrote that "Kevan Abrahams, the Democratic leader in the Nassau County Legislature who lost a primary to Ms. Rice in 2014, is considering running again," but he's one of many.

Jay Jacobs, the incoming chairman of the New York Democratic Party, acknowledged that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s success had emboldened potential challengers. But he noted that the primary rules in New York have changed since 2018, when it was the only state in America to hold a separate state and congressional elections, driving down turnout to abysmal lows. Plus, incumbents won't be “caught sleeping.”

“It’s going to be a real fight,” Mr. Jacobs said. “And in a real fight, my money is with the incumbents.”

No doubt Jacobs' money is with the incumbents.

Holding Bad Democrats Accountable-- Long Island New Dem Kathleen Rice Has Earned A Primary

New Dem Kathleen Rice and progressive Siela Bynoe

Kathleen Rice was one of the key instigators in the New Dem mini-rebellion against Nancy Pelosi late in 2018. Seth Moulton gets almost all the blame but it really was Rice who acted the part of the poisonous viper slithering around hissing in peoples' ears. You've probably heard a lot about Moulton getting a primary challenge but much less about Rice's. Rice epitomizes the Wall Street Democrat. And that's not because her Long Island district is so close physically. This past cycle-- in which the GOP didn't bother fielding a serious candidate against her-- she raised $1,391,804 and her single biggest source of campaign cash was... Wall Street ($142,400). As you can see, from the Open Secrets chart below, the Finance Sector is, by far, her biggest source of funds. Predictably, as soon as she got to Congress she joined the New Dems. She serves on the Homeland Security Committee and will chair its Subcommittee on Transportation Security. Progressive Punch has graded her voting record an "F" and her crucial lifetime vote score is a dismal 62.93, not as terrible as Sean Patrick Maloney's, but far to the right of other New York Democrats'.

Rice, a former Nassau County prosecutor, was elected to Congress in 2014 in NY's 4th congressional district (D+4, where Hillary beat Trump by about 10 points in 2016). The district includes most of southwest Nassau County, the inner suburbs my family moved to when I was 2 (first to Valley Stream and then to Roosevelt). It includes the storied Five Towns (actually only 4 of them now, Inwood having drifted west into NY-05), as well as Long Beach, Jones Beach, Freeport, Hempstead, Rockville Centre, Garden City, Floral Park, Mineola, Westbury and New Hyde Park. I went to college at Stony Brook and I think half the students came from NY-04. Rice always bragged how she was New York's toughest DWI prosecutor. She was also tough on students who cheated on exams and was a big anti-drug fanatic. Cuomo appointed her as one of the 3 chairs of the notorious Moreland Commission on Corruption, basically a vehicle to cover-up his own and his cronies' corruption. In 2010 she ran as the right-of-center Democrat for Attorney General. She was heavily pushed by EMILY's List, spent the most money by far and was defeated in the primary by the progressive in the race.

You may have noticed a passing reference to a primary above. But that's the reason for this morning's post. Rice has one coming this cycle. Well-liked Nassau County legislator Siela Bynoe, a progressive, is being recruited by activist and reform groups to run for the seat. Right now, she represents the heart of the congressional district in the county legislature-- Hempstead, Lakeview, Westbury, New Cassel, Uniondale, and Rockville Centre. This is a CrowdPac page recently created by the Young Progressives of Nassau County:

We are outraged that our Democratic Congresswoman Kathleen Rice (NY-4) has been working with the Republican Party to sabotage Nancy Pelosi from becoming Speaker of the House.

Rep. Rice has supported cutting Social Security benefits (by raising the retirement age), banning Syrian refugees, rolling back Obama regulations on Wall Street, and gutting the Americans with Disabilities Act. At the height of Trump’s racist birther campaign to delegitimize President Obama, Rice accepted $53,100 in campaign contributions from Donald Trump himself. Her spokesman Michael Aciman said, “Rice has no intention of returning these contributions.”

Let us call Rice what she is: a Trump-funded Democrat who has been collaborating with the Republican Party to dismantle President Obama’s legacy piece by piece. It’s time to replace her with a progressive Democrat who will fight for working families.

We, the Young Progressives of Nassau County, are drafting Nassau County Legislator Siela Bynoe to run for Congress in 2020. Bynoe has represented the communities of Hempstead, Lakeview, Westbury, New Cassel, Uniondale, and Rockville Centre in the Legislature since 2014. She has also been the Executive Director of Huntington Housing Authority since 2006. She has fought for a $15 minimum wage, affordable housing, criminal justice reform, clean water, public transit, and many other issues.

Siela Bynoe is a candidate who would truly champion the interests of working people of New York's 4th. Kathleen Rice, on the other hand, has failed to represent the residents of the 4th Congressional District, a district Clinton won by 10 points and Obama by 13 points. In addition to her abysmal political record, she hasn't held a town hall in nearly two years.

 Please chip in whatever you can to replace Rice with a true progressive. No corporate PACs. Only people power. Your card will only be charged if Siela Bynoe runs for Congress in NY-04.

Earlier this morning, Alex Kaufman, reporting for HuffPo, pointed out that "new polling shows older, suburban women in Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice’s Long Island district overwhelmingly support a Green New Deal" and that her opposition to it makes her vulnerable to a primary challenge. If Bynoe goes through with the primary, it will be Rice's first since being elected to Congress. Kaufman points out that Rice was endorsed by a handful of GOP officials in her district in 2016 and since then has voted with Trump around 30% of the time.

Her vulnerability to a challenge could speak to the changing nature of the Democratic electorate. Support for a Green New Deal unites disparate primary voters from the 2016 election. Among New York 4th Congressional District voters who picked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016, 55 percent said they would support a pro-Green New Deal candidate, compared to 8 percent who wouldn’t. Among voters who picked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary, support for a Green New Deal proponent hit 46 percent, compared to 19 percent who don’t.

The results mirror support for Ocasio-Cortez, whose surprise primary victory over the summer skyrocketed the 29-year-old to national fame. In Rice’s district, 52 percent of those polls viewed Ocasio-Cortez favorably, of which 56 percent said they’d support a Green New Deal proponent in a 2020 primary.

“Ocasio-Cortez has clearly broken through,” Sean McElwee, the co-founder of Data for Progress, said by phone. “People like Ocasio-Cortez are more than willing to primary a Democrat for not supporting a Green New Deal.”

But reaching a point where there’s enough “organic buzz” around a Green New Deal that it’s a “topic of discussion beyond the direct actions of a primary opponent,” will require a lot of work, said Jeff Hauser, a veteran progressive strategist.

...“It is seems more than plausible to me but rather very likely that if made salient to voters, opposition to a Green New Deal would be deeply dangerous for the primary chances of any incumbent Democrat,” Hauser said by email. “However the work of making it salient is no small task.”