For the AG, it's facetime

Daily Point

James cuts to the Capitol chase

Days before the 2021 general election, the 2022 general election started to boil over.

Attorney General Tish James’ announcement that she was running for governor rippled quickly through the state, making a larger splash because it came shortly before Albany Sheriff Craig Apple’s news conference regarding a criminal complaint filed against former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

James’ campaign video became a who’s who of key political players — none of whom have endorsed James:

• A quick glance shows James with Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone — who has been named as a potential gubernatorial candidate himself, twice — at a HealNY event about the opioid epidemic and at a Long Island Against antisemitism march.
• Sen. Chuck Schumer and Nassau County Executive Laura Curran walked alongside James and Bellone at the anti-Semitism event. Curran, of course, was seen just Thursday introducing Gov. Kathy Hochul at a bill-signing event in Westbury.
• State Sen. James Gaughran, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., and Assembly members Yuh-Line Niou and Jose Rivera, among others, also made appearances.
• While none of those electeds have yet to support James publicly, powerful Transport Workers Union president John Samuelson endorsed James, minutes after she announced her candidacy, saying, "In Tish James, workers will have a governor who goes to bat for us every single day."
• We wrote Thursday about a get-out-the-vote event that was to feature both Hochul and James. By Friday afternoon, however, that event appeared to be taking a potentially different shape as an event posting instead featured Schumer — and didn’t mention Hochul and James at all. But it did refer to "special guests" — so whether one or both of the gubernatorial candidates show up remains to be seen.
• Cuomo didn’t make an appearance in James’ video, except when the attorney general referred to her efforts to hold accountable "those who mistreat and harass women in the workplace, no matter how powerful the offenders." But by Friday afternoon, Cuomo put himself front and center, emerging with a statement from his spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, that said James "abused her office to falsely accuse Governor Cuomo because she was afraid to confront him in an election and let the people decide."
• That statement quickly was overtaken by Apple’s news conference, in which he said the criminal complaint was issued more quickly than he anticipated, but he emphasized that the case against Cuomo is a solid one.

Buckle up: there are 376 days until Nov. 8, 2022.

— Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall

Talking Point

Low-show jobs

Now that the editorial board has wrapped up its endorsement interviews in Nassau and Suffolk county legislative races, a strange detail has been made clear:

A surprising number of districts feature a candidate who is not actively campaigning.

Naturally, this makes the other candidate a relative shoo-in, and doesn’t exactly provide much choice or healthy debate about governance in the district.

The trend appears to have increased. In our endorsements from recent off-years, we described six candidates as not actively campaigning or running unopposed in 2015; three in 2017; and seven in 2019.

This year, 10 candidates were not actively campaigning, according to the candidate or their party, out of a total of 37 districts across both counties.

The Point reached out to the Nassau and Suffolk Democratic and Republican county chairs to ask about the low-shows. Suffolk GOP leader Jesse Garcia said he disagreed about the lack of competition, arguing that the party was running competitively and actively in a majority of the seats.

But when both parties take their feet off the brakes in different races, it can lead to few big battles. GOP Suffolk minority leader Legis. Kevin J. McCaffrey told The Point there was a reason why so few incumbents were getting powerful challengers anymore — he himself has an opponent who is not actively campaigning despite tighter contests in the past. McCaffrey said that "the race is all about" the 18th legislative district in Huntington, an open-seat contest that some believe could change the balance of power from Democrat to Republican. The political powers were putting "all of their resources into that one race," he said.

Another factor behind uncompetitive races is lopsided districts that lean to one party or the other.

In Suffolk, there’s another race with no incumbent, in the 10th LD, but that one features Republican Trish Bergin Weichbrodt, an Islip Town Council member, in a district that has long been safely Republican.

"The partisan redistricting takes its toll," emailed Nassau Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs when asked about the number of noncompetitive races. "When one party has a tremendous enrollment and performance advantage, over time competing candidates are harder to find."

Jacobs went on to outline the "safe seats" for Democrats in the Nassau legislature — districts 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, and 16. He noted that two others are held by an independent and a registered Democrat who caucuses with Republicans. The other 10, he said, are "safe" GOP seats.

Parties, Jacobs said, "do not want to pump ‘good money’ into likely losing campaigns."

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Pencil Point

Yes, there is a Virginia

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons

Final Point

Politics, more than deadline, prompts budget vote

In Nassau County, finalizing the budget by Nov. 1, and thus before elections, is the law. This year, battling between Democratic County Executive Laura Curran and the Republican-majority county legislature came right down to the wire. The resolution came after a special legislative session Friday morning at which the Republicans failed to override Curran’s veto of their plans. That was predictable.

Republicans approved 12 amendments with 11-8 party-line votes on Oct. 17. The most significant were elimination of the $50 fee on red-light tickets and the $355 tax map fee, and a reduction of the mortgage recording fee from $300 to $50, along with an additional $50 million one-time property tax cut above what Curran has proposed.

Curran vetoed the amendments Thursday and Richard Nicolello, the legislature's presiding officer, scheduled the override vote for 10 a.m. Friday. In a single vote the result was again 11-8, along party lines.

"It was absolutely to get the Democrats on the record before the election on this issue," Nicolello said. "But that’s also the point of having the budget deadline that we do. Voters should know how the budget went before they cast ballots.

— Lane Filler @lanefiller

Puzzle Point

In the news

Welcome to The Point’s latest news quiz, based on events that took place this week. As usual, provide the answer for each clue, one letter per blank. The first letter of each answer, taken in order, spells out the politician who said this about negotiations on President Joe Biden’s domestic policy package: "So it seems to me almost every sensible progressive revenue option that the president wants and the American people want, and that I want, seems to be sabotaged." Answers will appear in Monday’s edition of The Point.

_ _ _ _ _ _ South American nation that announced it would shorten its timeline by 2 to 3 years to eliminate deforestation.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Percentage of new Suffolk County Police Department recruits who are minorities (it’s less than 20).

_ _ _ _ _ _ Exclusive privately owned island in Peconic Bay, where two men were cited with trespass and hunting violations.

_ _ _ _ _ _ Long Island county in which 19 seats in the legislature are up for grabs in Tuesday’s election.

_ _ _ _ Nation whose chief negotiator said it would return to nuclear talks in November.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _        _ _ _ _ _ _ The Oyster Bay Town board voted to take control of an East Massapequa golf course by this legal procedure.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Long Island town that froze property tax assessments for one more year.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Suffolk County village that finally agreed to a contract with its police union after three years of negotiations.

_ _ _ _ Number of criminal charges a congressional panel in Brazil recommended be brought against President Jair Bolsonaro over his response to the pandemic.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Popular Southern California tourist attraction that raised its ticket prices to as much as $164 for a one-day admission.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Long Island colleges and universities report that this has been dropping the last two years, primarily because of the pandemic.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Long Island town in which civic groups are trying to get Sound Avenue designated as a scenic corridor to preserve its bucolic nature.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ African countries reported a shortage of these in giving COVID-19 vaccines to their populations.

— Michael Dobie @mwdobie

Did you miss an issue of The Point? Browse past newsletters here.