EDITORIAL: Newsday declines to endorse in the 18th Assembly District

Entrenched Democrat incumbent Earlene Hooper of Hempstead spends a lot of time in Albany, where she is well-known as the member who has garnered hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel and living expenses since she first arrived in 1988.

For more than a decade her opponents have charged she is not responsive to her district. Republican Derek Partee, 58, of Hempstead, is making that case yet again, but Partee, a former Nassau County homicide detective, isn't actively campaigning because the GOP knows Hooper will get her ticket punched yet again in this Democratic stronghold.

Despite her unresponsiveness to many groups and organizations, Hooper, 71, does carve out time to advocate for Roosevelt schools and is sponsoring a bill that would require the bigger villages to approve any tax breaks awarded by industrial development agencies.

Hooper, however, is being overly dismissive when she says Albany's dysfunction is only a "perception" and legislators work hard.

Newsday makes no endorsement.