Offshore wind bill weathers a storm

Daily Point

Tempers fly over wind farm, Israeli settlements bills

In one of the Assembly’s last acts of this year’s session in Albany, the body approved the Planned Offshore Wind Transmission Act — which is expected to help propel forward the development of the state’s offshore wind industry.

But the bill’s passage wasn’t without some contention and controversy Wednesday night.

That’s because the measure also allows for the alienation of parkland necessary to build transmission lines to connect a proposed offshore wind farm off the coast of Long Beach. And Assembly members on both sides of the aisle expressed concern that the bill could be thought of as a local bill — one that wasn’t supported by the impacted district’s representative.

Republican Assemb. Ari Brown, who represents Long Beach, jump-started the debate and quickly became argumentative toward the bill's sponsor, Brooklyn Assemb. Marcela Mitaynes. Brown began by attempting to quiz Mitaynes on the length of Long Beach’s boardwalk and the name of its city manager, along with the name of the mayor of nearby Island Park, where a substation is planned, and which body of water the substation would be located near.

“This is a shameful, shameful situation going on here,” Brown said. “Do you have the vaguest idea of where Long Beach and Island Park are?”

As his questioning continued, Brown became confrontational, even condescending. At several points, Assemb. Chuck Lavine, a Democrat, tried to intervene, first asking Brown if he would yield for a question, but Brown refused. When Lavine again rose to try to calm tempers, Jeffrion L. Aubrey, the speaker pro tempore, spoke up.

“Everybody, we’re going to take it down a minute. I understand the anxiety that you have. We got it,” Aubrey said. “However, this is a process by ... [which] we talk to each other. We don’t attack each other even in our opposition to the position.”

Brown responded, saying he had the “reputation of being a gentleman.”

Aubrey answered: “And we want you to retain that reputation, sir.”

“We can go on if that’s OK, Mr. Speaker,” Brown said.

Said Aubrey: “As long as you maintain some decorum, sir.”

But it didn’t stop there. Later in his speech against the bill, Brown mentioned the “Not on our dime” bill, which didn’t pass but had proposed prohibiting nonprofit corporations from “aiding or abetting activity in support of illegal Israeli settlements.” Brown cited a speech he made against that bill, which was co-sponsored by Mitaynes, earlier this month, during which he recalled saying, "They’re just using Jews as the opening salvo. They’re going after you guys." Added Brown about the Long Beach bill: "Where do you think this is coming from?”

Lavine interjected again: “This bill has absolutely nothing to do with any other pieces of legislation, nor is this bill in any way anti-Jewish and I would urge you to caution the person who is speaking now to keep that in mind and to pay attention to the actual bill itself.”

Brown, who is an Orthodox Jew, told The Point Thursday morning that he saw the Israeli settlement bill as relevant, because he views Mitaynes — and the Israeli settlement bill — as antisemitic. In the interview, he also pointed to supporters during the debate who noted the need to focus on the “greater good.” That, he said, was similar to something Adolf Hitler would say.

“Every despot in history says it’s for the greater good,” Brown said in the interview.

Lavine told The Point Thursday that he saw Brown’s attempt to raise the antisemitism charge during the debate over the Long Beach bill as “an utter distraction.”

“The suggestion that the bill had anything to do with antisemitism was just really grotesque,” Lavine said.

Lavine, who voted in favor of the Long Beach measure, called the situation “unusual.”

“It roused a lot of passions. Some of those passions were personal attacks,” Lavine said. “It was a bizarre conflict the likes of which we haven’t seen in this form.”

But even with the ugliness, there may be room for accord.

During his speech on the Long Beach bill Wednesday, Lavine suggested that he and Brown could meet up at the Lido Kosher Deli for lunch. While the deli is open on Shabbat, making it a tricky spot for more religious Jews, Brown told The Point Thursday that he would join in, at least for a tuna fish sandwich.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Hunter burden

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Reference Point

Primary dissatisfaction

The Newsday editorial seemed pegged to the present moment:

“No single decision is more important to the United States — or to the world — than choosing a president. But the choice cannot be a wise one unless the major parties nominate candidates whose judgments Americans trust and whose abilities they respect.

“Obviously, such potential leaders exist. But the system often seems incapable of bringing them forth.”

But Newsday’s board was not referencing a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch. Nor was it commenting on the race eight years ago when the choices were Trump and Hillary Clinton.

No, this particular editorial appeared on June 22, 1980, when the upcoming campaign would feature incumbent President Jimmy Carter and ultimate winner Ronald Reagan. And the board expressed frustration with a primary system that — stop us if you’ve heard this before — placed undue weight on early states like tiny New Hampshire while relegating populous states like New York to afterthoughts.

The title of the editorial revealed the board’s solution: “A Regional Approach to Presidential Primaries.”

The board proposed five regional primaries conducted three weeks apart in random order determined each election cycle two months before the primaries’ early-April start. The states would be grouped contiguously with roughly equivalent populations. One group would include New York with the six New England states, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Another would feature Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia.

The board noted that when Carter and Reagan sealed their nominations, one-fifth of the U.S. population in late-primary states “had been effectively excluded from the selection process.” New Hampshire, with less than one-half of one percent of the national electorate, played an outsized role while New York’s late-March primary was “largely meaningless” because “Reagan and Carter had already piled up leads and momentum.”

The board did not want to return to the pre-primary system dominated by “political leaders and power brokers,” instead stating its preference for “strengthening” the primary process, “correcting” its flaws, and “giving some focus to what is now a hodgepodge of party rules and state laws.”

Much of that dissatisfaction persists, with candidates still complaining of the disproportionate influence of Iowa and New Hampshire and states jockeying for positioning in the primary sweepstakes.

“The Constitution says nothing about political parties or primary elections, and some states and party leaders will no doubt resist any congressional effort to reform the nominating process,” the board wrote. “But the present dissatisfaction with the candidates is not unique: Many Americans weren’t happy with choices they had in 1964 or 1972, to cite only two examples.”

Nor were many voters happy with their choices in many elections that followed. And 43 years later, history seems likely to repeat itself again.

— Michael Dobie michael.dobie@newsday.com, Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com