Roe reversal campaigns

Daily Point

Hochul's new edge

The leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion revealing there are enough votes to overturn Roe v. Wade gave Gov. Kathy Hochul a clear escape route from some political troubles.

On Monday evening, before Politico published an early draft of the court’s position, Hochul was under heavy criticism for pushing a special state law that allowed her to do some damage control over her disastrous first pick for lieutenant governor, while absorbing the blowback over the state’s failed redistricting process.

Meanwhile, statewide internal polls were showing a slip in her early lead in the primary field and declining confidence among Democrats that Hochul could defeat a Republican nominee among continued concerns over public safety.

The Roe reversal scenario put new energy and focus into Democratic campaigns, especially for women candidates.

On Thursday, Hochul was doing national media to talk about how New York would be a refuge for those unable to get abortions in other states. She told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC that the state is considering an amendment to New York’s Constitution establishing a right of privacy. Her campaign has also released a new ad saying she would protect access to abortions because, “I’ll always stand up for New York women.”

The court leak prompted CD3 candidate Melanie D’Arrigo to send text messages about a “five alarm fire moment” that asked for financial support. Other House Democrats posted their reactions on social media and photos of themselves at rallies. D’Arrigo was at one in Mineola, Laura Gillen, who is seeking the line in CD4, posted photos of herself holding a “keep your bans off our body” sign at an event in Manhattan. Bridget Fleming, who is running in CD1, posted photos of a protest in the Hamptons while her rival, Kara Hahn, used her social media account to bring attention to a Rally for Reproductive Rights this Saturday in Islip. 

The court is expected to rule in late June in the Mississippi abortion case. Assuming Roe v. Wade is overturned, it could give Democrats a long runway to use the issue in their campaigns.

— Rita Ciolli @ritaciolli 

Talking Point

Mandate under protest

As many vaccination requirements at arenas, entertainment venues, and other locations have been lifted, at least one public spot continues to require either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test result: the State Capitol and the Legislative Office Building in Albany. 

And that’s drawing the ire of a group planning to head to Albany on May 16 for a round of rallies and meetings with lawmakers over a set of bills they’re fighting against.

The group? Those who oppose vaccine mandates.

“As far as I can tell, these are the only nonmedical buildings in the state of New York where you still have to have proof of vaccination,” said John Gilmore, who heads the Autism Action Network and the New York chapter of Children’s Health Defense. “What’s the point here? This is the people’s house. It seems really crazy.”

Gilmore, who lives in Long Beach and opposes vaccination mandates, said getting tested isn’t an appropriate option either because, he said, he thinks it can be expensive and unreliable. (Free COVID testing is available at locations across the state.)

“There’s no major institution in New York right now that is maintaining these passports and testing systems. Why is my Capitol?” said Wantagh resident Michael Kane, who founded a group called Teachers for Choice and was fired from his New York City teaching job because he wasn’t vaccinated. “Why is every other building in the state safe without this except for the focal center of power?”

Heather Groll, a spokeswoman for the state’s Office of General Services, told The Point that the visitation rules for the Capitol and Legislative Office Building were developed “in consultation with” State Police, the Department of Health, and the Legislature.

“OGS and our partners in State government will continue to evaluate these restrictions and ongoing developments regarding COVID-19,” Groll said in a statement.

Michael Whyland, a state Assembly spokesman, noted that the testing option means that anyone can come into the buildings — whether or not they’re vaccinated. 

“We want to make sure people are safe,” he said.

But Gilmore said he wondered whether there were ulterior motives afoot.

“Maybe it’s that they’ve made a calculus that there are certain people they don’t want to talk to,” Gilmore said.

Nonetheless, Gilmore said he expects thousands of people to head to Albany for the May 16 protest. And he’s hoping that if the protesters can’t go inside the buildings, lawmakers will come outside to meet with them. He noted that in January, during a similar rally in bad weather, more than 4,000 people showed up.

Sources said the bills Gilmore, Kane and their groups are protesting aren’t likely to move forward in this legislative session. The groups are opposing various pieces of legislation, including bills that would make the COVID-19 shot mandatory for K-12 grade students, eliminate the religious exemption for adults for work or school, and require health care providers to report adult vaccination records to the state Department of Health.

But Gilmore and Kane noted that things can change at the end of the legislative session.

“We’re going up there in case they forgot,” Kane said. “We just want to remind them and show our faces and say. ‘Hey, we didn’t go anywhere.’ We’re assuming nothing.” 

— Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall

Pencil Point

Away they go

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

Reference Point

The housing problem

There seems never to have been a time when housing was not an issue on Long Island. It was 81 years ago, when Newsday’s editorial board offered a piece with a timeless title: “The Housing Problem.”

But this one had a twist.

The issue back on May 5, 1941 was that within six months about 18,000 new workers would be employed in aircraft plants in the Farmingdale-Bethpage area. This was an apparent reference to Grumman’s factory in Bethpage, Republic Aviation’s facility in East Farmingdale, and their World War II-inspired ramp-up in producing fighter aircraft like the Hellcat and Thunderbolt, respectively.

The editorial board noted that most of the workers would come from Long Island but worried about what it called a “hazy and ambiguous situation” — namely, that a few thousand of the workers “will, in fact, be ‘migrants.’”

“When these men arrive there will be no housing available for them in the Farmingdale-Bethpage area, may be no adequate quarters anywhere within commutable distance,” the board wrote.

In lamenting that nothing was being done to get ahead of this supposed problem, the board outlined what it saw as the “uncomfortable” parameters:

Build too little housing and it might become impossible to staff these vital aircraft industries, and local merchants in Bethpage and Farmingdale would suffer as well.

Build sufficient housing for the “expected influx” in the Farmingdale area and, the board concluded, “there’s a good chance that when the ‘emergency’ is over the section will become a ghost town.”

One could perhaps forgive the board its naiveté that any housing built on Long Island would ever go unoccupied, never mind become a “ghost town.” After all, the postwar exodus to suburbia spurred by Levittown was still six years away.

The board then recounted a Newsday interview with Farmingdale Mayor Fred G. Murray, who noted that one 90-acre housing development was “mushrooming” but that the village board had rejected several applications from developers for variances to build apartments. Sound familiar?

In the end, of course, the new workers arrived — and, in the case of Grumman, kept arriving — more housing was built, more people settled in the area, more merchants were happy and prosperous, and no ghost towns developed.

But on that date in 1941, Newsday’s editorial board looked at a pressing problem where no solutions were being offered and no real steps taken, and concluded: “But the way it looks now, a few thousand men will soon be imported into the area and there will be no place for them to live. Then maybe they’ll leave for a job where living quarters are available.”

And with that, the board stumbled on another eternal verity of life in this region: the worry that people will leave Long Island.

— Michael Dobie @mwdobie and Amanda Fiscina @adfiscina