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Mayor may be Carolyn McCarthy's major rival in years

BY THOMAS MAIER | thomas.maier@newsday.com

September 28, 2008

After nearly 12 years in Washington, Carolyn McCarthy is no longer a newcomer to politics.

"I knew nothing when I started," McCarthy admitted. "I was new to politics and I didn't know what I was getting into."

This year, her Republican opponent, Mineola Village Mayor Jack Martins, is promising to make McCarthy's long tenure in Congress - rather than her newness - the main issue in the campaign. With a well-funded campaign, Martins may prove McCarthy's most serious challenge in years.

McCarthy was elected to Congress in 1996, a nurse running as a Democrat and outraged by then-incumbent Rep. Dan Frisa's vote to repeal the federal assault weapons ban. Three years earlier, McCarthy's husband, Dennis McCarthy, had been killed and her son, Kevin, badly injured by gunman Colin Ferguson during the Long Island Rail Road massacre. After that, McCarthy devoted herself to gun control.

Since then, McCarthy's popularity - a 1998 television movie recounted her story - has allowed her to win re-election handily in the 4th Congressional District, which includes much of the Town of Hempstead and parts of North Hempstead Town.

Martins, a 41-year-old lawyer and mayor, is critical of McCarthy's handling of economic issues, particularly the high price of gas, and her opposition to the troop surge in Iraq.

"She went down there 12 years ago to get something done and she's gotten away from that," Martins said.

Champion issue

For years, McCarthy had little to show on her signature issue of gun control - until January, when President George W. Bush signed a bill strengthening the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The legislation - the first major gun-control measure passed in 14 years - provides federal funding to states to update records of the mentally ill, convicted criminals and those with restraining orders against them by making it harder for them to register and buy guns legally.

McCarthy had first proposed the legislation not long after a mentally ill gunman walked into a Lynbrook church during a morning Mass in 2002 and murdered a Catholic priest and a 73-year-old parishioner. But her legislation remained stalled until last year's Virginia Tech massacre, when a student previously determined to be mentally ill killed 32 students and faculty, and himself, with semi-automatic pistols he had been able to buy legally because the federal background check system didn't reveal his psychiatric history.

"I knew it was going to be a tough battle with a pro-gun House and a pro-gun Senate," McCarthy said of her gun-control efforts in Congress. "People would say, 'Oh, here comes that gun lady,' but I always wanted common-sense laws for our communities."

Victims of gun violence have praised McCarthy's work on the background-check bill.

"Millions of Americans are safer today ... because of this bill," said Michael Bishop, the father of Jamie Bishop, 35, a professor killed at Virginia Tech.

While McCarthy received praise for the new bill, critics say it largely happened because veteran Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), backed by the National Rifle Association lobby, agreed to support the bill. "McCarthy had her name attached to it but the power player was John Dingell," said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.

Criticisms

Other gun control advocates say they were disappointed in McCarthy, who took credit for the bill as a prime sponsor, for compromising too much with pro-gun factions.

Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a Washington-based gun control advocacy group, said Dingell "hijacked" the McCarthy bill by adding many provisions acceptable to the gun lobby. For instance, Rand said a loophole in the law would allow 116,000 military veterans with previous mental problems to potentially reapply for gun ownership if they wished - a view contested by other gun control advocates, including McCarthy.

"We're disappointed [McCarthy] didn't look at its details more closely before this was passed," Rand said.

McCarthy, however, called it the most palatable bill for gun supporters after the public outcry surrounding the Virginia Tech massacre. She said that after years of frustration, she willingly enlisted Dingell's support in order to make some progress on gun control. "There are some people who'd rather see a bill go down," if they don't get a "perfect" bill, she said. "I'm a nurse and you have to know how to maneuver people to do things they wouldn't ordinarily do. But this is a good bill and it will save lives."

McCarthy's political career began with her election to Congress, as the strength of the Republican political machine in Nassau was waning and Democrats on Long Island were gaining strength. She calls herself a centrist, and didn't change her Republican voter registration until 2002. "I still don't wake up saying if I'm a Democrat or Republican," she laughed.