Off-year Election Day raises interesting questions
Photo credit: James Carbone | Voters sign in to vote at the Wading River Congregational Church. (Nov. 3, 2009)
Tuesday turned out to be awfully exciting for an off-off-year election. Despite low turnout, those voters who showed up made their wishes known. And what they wished for was real relief - from a tax burden that keeps increasing as incomes and property values shrink. Whatever happens next, the election raised some interesting questions. Here are a few:
1. THE ANGRY VOTE. A decade ago, Nassau voters swept in a Democratic legislature because they were angry about the Republicans imposing a new land transfer tax and unpopular changes in the county's tax assessment system. On Tuesday, voters turned the legislature back over to the GOP amid anger over the same things - a new tax on home energy costs and an assessment system that 10 years later has yet to gain public confidence. How long will it take voters to act, again, if nothing changes?
2. MORE CHANGE? In Huntington, one-term Democratic incumbent Stuart Besen lost to Republican/Conservative challenger Mark Mayoka - likely within weeks of a yet-to-be scheduled vote on whether council members should continue to be elected at-large, or by district. Are town voters seeding the council with a member of a different party in anticipation of more changes?
3. LIGHTS OUT ON LIGHTHOUSE? In Hempstead, where the Lighthouse project emerged as a major campaign issue, Republican Supervisor Kate Murray trounced Democratic challenger and vocal Lighthouse supporter Kristen McElroy. Will that make it harder for Charles Wang to get his dream development off the ground?
4. OLD VERSUS NEW. Two of Long Island's longest serving supervisors, Patrick Vecchio of Smithtown and John Venditto of Oyster Bay, won handily in towns that seem immune to change. Meanwhile, Riverhead Supervisor Phil Cardinale, known for his support for so-called smart growth to revitalize downtowns such as his, lost hard as his efforts showed little result, while another smart-growth advocate, Steve Bellone, won easily in Babylon. In the ongoing battle of Old Post-World-War II Long Island versus Visions of Long Island Born Anew, which will win?
5. VOTERS CHOICE. Fewer voters sent Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota back to office for a third term than voted for him for his second. In 2005, with cross-endorsement, the Democrat garnered 220,000 votes to sail into a second term. This year, it took only 179,000 to win a third. This isn't about Spota. It's about political party leaders from major and minor parties in Suffolk deciding to endorse him - and the only two other candidates for countywide office this year. (When Spota first ran in 2001 against two other candidates, the total number of votes cast was 227,000.) How low will the vote totals go before leaders give voters what they deserve - a choice?
6. 'BAD RAP.' Jay Jacobs, the state's new Democratic Party leader, took some big hits in his home county of Nassau Tuesday night. Joseph Mondello, the state's recently dumped Republican Party leader, got big wins in Nassau. "I have been kicked around very unfairly," Mondello said election night at the party's Westbury headquarters. "I know that I took a state party that had no money and left it with money. I know that what's happening tonight could not be happening without my work. I think I got a bad rap, and I resent it terribly." Does that mean Nassau's political stature is rising?
7. LESSON LEARNED. Should unofficial results stand, seven of the original Republican members of the Nassau County Legislature's first majority will go from 10 years of being the minority party to being back on top. On Tuesday, Legis. Vincent Muscarella said he's learned two lessons from the experience. "The legislature needs to be a strong, independent body," he said, "and we need to put the people's business, like taking care of taxes, first." Is anybody else out there listening?
