Levy: Maverick tax hawk with political sense

Here on Long Island, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy's sensitivity to his constituents is so legendary it comes close to a punch line.

As a county legislator, he once phoned a local Burger King to raise concerns about how it was bagging its French fries.

As a state assemblyman, he pushed in vain for "Proud to be an American" license plates and a law to require state phone systems to include an option to talk to a live person.

And as county executive, Levy keeps the local TV news on in his office at all times, tracking how his administration is being covered, ever ready to pick up the phone.

"I can't tell you how many false or inaccurate reports there are during the course of the day," Levy said. ". . . If we're not getting our word out to the public as to what we're seeking to do, we're going to lose."

In the run-up to the Republican nominating convention Tuesday and the Conservatives' last Friday, Levy's rival Rick Lazio has sought to frame him as a tax-and-spend "Shelly Silver liberal," whose recent switch from Democrat to Republican was pure opportunism.

But Levy's record over 25 years in elected office is that of a maverick tax hawk who's most at home midway between the Democratic and Republican camps. A longtime ally of the good-government lobby and adversary of the police union, Levy has catered devotedly to volunteer firefighters, the elderly, veterans and the "little guy." He made a personal quest of fighting illegal immigration in Suffolk, a lonely stand for a Democrat, but one that also reflected public opinion.

Critics vs. admirers

Critics call it all grandstanding; admirers, independence.

"He had a uniquely keen understanding of where voters were at on an issue," said Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, who has worked with Levy on several reform measures over the years.

"It's almost like he's genetically hard-wired to receive signals - particularly from suburban voters. He's like a walking political antenna, for good or ill," Horner said.

Walking, literally, is Levy's signature move. Elected to the Suffolk legislature at 26 in a district with a 2-1 Republican edge by dint of diligent canvassing, Levy kept it up for 18 years; what he heard at those doorsteps in Sayville, Holbrook and Ronkonkoma formed his creed.

"Taxes, taxes, taxes," he recalled. "They felt the elected class didn't get it - and they were right. . . . All the programs in the world don't mean anything if you can't afford to live here."

Levy was serving his first term when he and other lawmakers sued the county over a budget that violated a spending cap, winning a $33.2 million rebate.

"He was the beginning of a new breed" of Democrats, who "looked at fiscal issues more conservatively," said Paul Sabatino, the former counsel to the Legislature and a onetime ally and senior aide to Levy. "He was a decade ahead."

Voted against pay raises

Levy cast votes against pay increases, but for term limits and easing citizen referendum rules; for budget cuts, and perennially, for tightening controls on county cars. But the centerpiece was his 10-year fight for public financing of county elections, a version of which won passage through a public referendum, but was later repealed.

As a new Assembly member, "he was up on the floor talking right away," Horner said. "He was very aggressive in getting bills introduced."

How close was Levy to Silver?

"If Steve Levy's a Shelly Silver Democrat, then I'm a Shelly Silver Republican," said Andrew Raia (R-Huntington Station), explaining that most Assembly bills pass unanimously.

A Newsday analysis of Levy's votes shows that in 2003, Levy voted with Silver 91.7 percent of the time, but still positioned himself halfway between the Democrats and Republicans. He was more sympathetic to Republicans when it came to rules, bucking Silver on six bills to equalize their privileges.

Last year, Democrats voted with Silver 97.5 percent of the time, and the Republicans 84 percent, according to NYPIRG, which calls this pattern typical.

Levy also parted with Silver by routinely opposing any expansion of binding arbitration for law enforcement unions, at times casting the sole "no" vote. He opposed new library districts, wireless surcharges and anything expanding government taxing power, including routine sales tax extensions - even one for Suffolk County.

When then-Gov. George Pataki and the Republican Senate threw their support behind a constitutional amendment to give voters the power of initiative and referendum, its prime Assembly sponsor was Steve Levy.

Aided volunteer firefighters

It died in committee. But Levy did sponsor and pass property tax exemptions for volunteer firefighters, a potent bloc who helped unseat Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi last year after he backed special-district reforms.

In his last session in the Assembly, Levy cast what he calls his only vote for a tax increase out of more than 100 there. The Lazio campaign points to that vote, charging that he backed "the largest tax increase in state history." But Levy said the increases had bipartisan support, made up for revenue shortfalls caused by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and expired two years later.

On his first day as county executive in 2004, Levy cut $1 million in perks with a flourish: Gone were 20 county cars, 15 pay increases and his own police drivers.

For the first time in his career, Levy had executive power, and he has used it with gusto.

"Ask the public employee unions if I don't squeeze the nickel so hard it makes the buffalo cry," said Levy, who stakes his claim for the governorship on having taken "a record deficit and turn[ed] it into a surplus six years in a row, with tax stability."

Gloom-and-doom forecasts have been an annual ritual under Levy, who has closed the gaps with layoff threats, attrition, myriad economies and a series of one-shot revenue sources such as privatizing the county's HMO.

A prime target has been county police pay, civilianizing jobs and shifting the Long Island Expressway patrols to lower-paid sheriff's deputies, one of his bitterest fights in office.

But it was Levy's hard-nosed talk and action on immigration that would prove most polarizing of all. He demanded proof vendors weren't staffed by illegal immigrants, refused a hiring hall for day laborers; and started background checks on those charged with violent crimes.

Some homeowners cheered. But when an Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero was stabbed to death in Patchogue in what a jury would later call a hate crime, Levy's comment that it was a "one-day story" landed his county in a harsh national spotlight, forcing him to defend it and himself against charges that he had fostered a climate of hate.

Those tensions left the county executive fighting in Albany for the same county sales tax extension he'd opposed as an assemblyman - in a showdown with the Hispanic caucus, which tried to block it until he agreed to that day-laborer hiring hall.

Levy said he was merely defending a revenue source that has long since become part of his county's budgeting base.

"I had the moral high ground on this," Levy said.