EDITORIAL: Newsday's endorsement in the 12th Assembly District

For an environmentalist, Republican incumbent Joseph Saladino is rough on trees. He has produced reams of bills, proposals and detailed analyses of all that ails Albany.

Among the proposals by Saladino, 49, of Massapequa, is the Property Taxpayers' Protection Act. The bill would impose a property tax cap on school districts, but bar any new state mandate that would raise costs more than $10,000 for any district or $1 million statewide. He also wants a people's veto, to let voters block tax increases by petitioning for a referendum.

Democrat Kevin Gorman, 59, of Wantagh, works for Nassau's Board of Elections. He has run for town, county and state offices. Gorman supports a property tax cap and Andrew Cuomo's proposed Spending and Government Efficiency Commission, the first comprehensive rethinking of state government since 1927. In general, he has read and supports Cuomo's multivolume ideas.

Gorman seems to know the issues, but he didn't make a compelling case for expanding an already too-large Democratic majority in the Assembly.

Newsday endorses Saladino.