Nassau County Legislature election endorsements overview

The powers of a county as defined by state law are limited. The largest unit of municipal government has no control of land use, often the most contentious issue on Long Island. Zoning changes and the issuance of building permits happen in village and town arenas. Counties deliver mandated services such as policing, collecting sales tax, overseeing public health, and operating a board of elections, a jail and a probation department. They also distribute state and federal funding — an expected stream of $360 million from the state and $247.5 million in federal aid for Nassau County next year.

Sales and property taxes are Nassau's two biggest revenue streams. Nassau is unique in that it controls property tax assessment usually done by towns. It also is supposed to have a role on the governing board of Nassau University Medical Center.

How well Nassau delivers its mandated services depends on the county executive and the 19 lawmakers on the county legislature, long controlled by a Republican majority. A change in state election law caused those legislators elected in 2025 to only serve a one-year term; those winning in 2026 will have the usual two-year term.

Little has changed in that one year. The county is considered very safe — which it has been regardless of the party in power — as it spends one-quarter of its budget on policing. Beyond that, the current legislature fails to deliver independent oversight by questioning excessive spending or demanding answers about why there are significant job vacancies for detectives and child protective services workers. Republican incumbents told the editorial board they exercise that oversight privately by stopping bad ideas from County Executive Bruce Blakeman from seeing daylight.

Next year's proposed $4.6 billion budget depends on a drawdown on reserves — even more than the year before — a practice the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, the state's fiscal watchdog, says puts the county at risk. Nassau still is holding onto much of its money from the settlement of opioid abuse cases instead of spending it to deal with drug addiction. Aging drainage and sewage infrastructure still needs attention. And after five years of promises by Blakeman to fix the tax assessment system, it remains broken. Republicans refuse to make their appointments to the NUMC board, despite the hospital's challenges.

In our 2025 assessment of the legislature, we wrote that "governing in Mineola is more of an exercise of executive control than a shared effort to meet the considerable challenges of affordability, economic growth, safe roads and infrastructure upgrades." We have evaluated this year's legislative candidates by the same measure.