LI Republicans vote 'aye' on same-sex marriage

Daily Point

Going along now on same-sex marriage

Six New Yorkers were among the 47 House Republicans who voted on Tuesday to codify same-sex marriage — including the party’s candidate for governor, Rep. Lee Zeldin, and fellow Long Islander Rep. Andrew Garbarino.

The “yes” vote for them removes one culture-war divide with Democrats — in a season when an increasingly right-leaning Supreme Court has issued controversial rulings on abortion and guns.

It is doubtful that a Republican House majority would have held the vote, since the main objection from the party’s leadership was that same-sex nuptials were already upheld by the high court seven years ago. The roll call on Tuesday was 267-157 in favor.

Zeldin’s running mate for lieutenant governor, former NYPD Deputy Inspector Alison Esposito, is openly gay. In 2011, as a New York state senator, Zeldin voted “no” when the state first authorized same-sex marriage, insisting at that time: “It is my belief that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman.”

He then added that “despite my opposition, I am grateful for my Senate colleagues that fought so hard to secure important religious exemptions and other necessary changes to the bill.” The GOP majority leader at the time, Sen. Dean Skelos, also voted “no” but importantly, allowed the bill pushed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to be voted on and win approval in the chamber Skelos then controlled.

Also among the GOP “yes” votes on Tuesday was Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island, who like Zeldin voted against the state legalization in 2011 when she was a member of the Assembly.

Six years later, Malliotakis expressed regrets about the vote. “Any legislator has votes that they regret, and just like President Barack Obama, my views on same-sex marriage have evolved,” she said in 2017. The then-Conservative Party chairman, Mike Long, said: “It’s sort of a slap at conservative leaders in the state of New York, and city of New York.”

But times and political pressures have changed to the point where on Tuesday, only one of seven House Republicans from New York State, upstate Rep. Claudia Tenney, voted “No.”

— Dan Janison @Danjanison

Talking Point

Big Apple picking on the Island

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is only in his first year on the job, but has already logged some big fundraising for reelection, including on Long Island.

The Brooklyn Democrat raised more than $90,000 from contributors with Nassau or Suffolk addresses between mid-January and mid-July, more than 10% of the $850,000-plus he tallied for his first 2025 campaign filing.

It’s difficult to draw direct comparisons to the early fundraising of previous mayors, given differences in political strategy — Bill de Blasio, for example, had other fundraising objectives in 2014 — and the reduced contribution limits that constrain how much Adams can get at once. Still, the current mayor’s haul is more than double the $44,100 raised by de Blasio in his first analogous post-inauguration filing.

Adams has hustled in the past months to attract contributions, including trips to California and Chicago, and over $400,000 of this year’s haul came from outside the five boroughs. Adams also reportedly made multiple stops in the Hamptons during the election itself, and the new filing shows that the city denizen is still extending a hopeful palm out to LI, where his moderate stances and law enforcement background appear to be clicking.

As is the case for the filing in general, a large portion of Adams’s Long Island contributors work in the real estate field. There are also multiple donations from the LI executives or employees of various bus companies, including Guardian Bus Company and Hampton Jitney.

The Adams campaign did not address the LI cash directly, but celebrated the sum at large.

“This filing shows strong support for Mayor Adams and his plans for the city,” Adams 2025 counsel Vito Pitta said in a statement.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano and Kai Teoh @jkteoh

Pencil Point

Game over

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Data Point

Investment opportunity

Estimates from Brown University’s Climate Opportunity Map show that Long Island could potentially gain 20,000 jobs in the next few decades by investing in energy and climate solutions.

Using various scientific projections — ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy to scientific studies published in various journals — this tool scales those projections down to the congressional district level. Each indicator is carefully translated individually to be as accurate as possible.

The tool estimates about 3,800 jobs would be created in renewable construction and operation jobs, like installation of rooftop solar panels or in offshore wind generation. Energy efficiency work would create another 16,000 jobs through updating or retrofitting buildings and machines to be more energy efficient.

There are other predicted benefits with this transition as well. Assuming not all households electrify, Long Islanders could still see bill savings ranging from $255 to $386 annually depending on where they live.

What this tool does not try to do is model other sectors and how they could be affected by a shift to renewables; for example, the transition from oil, gas and coal could result in job losses in some areas.

Building off of the EPA’s projection on climate change’s impact on commuting delays, specifically coastal flooding’s effect on traffic, the map estimates nearly one million hours worth of traffic snarls could be saved. Most of it, about 926,000 hours, is projected to be saved in Suffolk County. The tool calculates the hours saved based on the difference between 1.5 degrees Celsius and 3 degrees Celsius of global warming.

During a week where spiking heat waves across the world are pushing communities and infrastructure to breaking points, a tool such as this shows some solutions a greener future could bring.

— Kai Teoh @jkteoh