Nassau GOP calls out Santos' 'Jewish' lie
Nassau Republican chairman Joe Cairo, center, calls on Rep. George Santos to resign Wednesday as County Executive Bruce Blakeman, right, and others look on, during a news conference in Westbury. Credit: Barry Sloan
Daily Point
Santos loses Nassau
Rep. George Santos' tweet on the call for him to resign. Credit: Twitter
When a long line of Nassau County Republicans came to the podium on Wednesday to call for Rep. George Santos’ resignation, one particular piece of the freshman congressman’s fibbery got special attention: his not particularly Jewish background and his claims about having grandparents who fled the Holocaust, which media outlets have contradicted.
A tweet about the New York Republican Party chairman's call for George Santos to step down. Credit: Twitter
GOP chairman Joe Cairo led off the litany at the party’s Westbury headquarters by noting that “many groups were hurt” by Santos’ fictions, highlighting families affected by the Holocaust.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is himself Jewish, noted that many people in Santos’ district identify as “legitimately” Jewish.
“When he called himself a Jew, that was ridiculous,” Blakeman went on, adding that the newcomer’s Holocaust story was “beyond the pale.”
And State Sen. Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick said she was “particularly offended also as a representative of the Five Towns and the Orthodox community,” a nod to a tight-knit and politically active part of Nassau. She suggested that “what he did regarding his religious status was exceptionally offensive.”
Why pick this Santos detail for such focus? It’s a lurid lie. And it’s one that isn’t connected to his campaign finance chicanery that in some ways redounds on the Nassau GOP because political committees tied to the freshman contributed close to $185,000 to the party’s committees, much of which the party said it would return.
It’s also a big issue for an important part of the Nassau GOP base, as highlighted directly by Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick.
The theater of electoral politics was certainly in the air on Wednesday despite the lack of an announced election anytime soon. Multiple officials who made statements — who included State Sen. Jack Martins, county Comptroller Elaine Phillips, and county Clerk Maureen O’Connell — gave sound bites that could serve as dry launches for future campaigns.
Cairo, however, demurred when asked whom he might appoint to run in CD3 if a vacancy arose.
“Well, there's no vacancy now," he said, calling it a “premature question.”
— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano
Pencil Point
Biden's taco stand
Credit: Counterpoint / Creators.com/Gary Varvel
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Final Point
Democrat Kayman keeps NUMC seat
When former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran nominated attorney Ann Kayman to a spot on the board of the Nassau University Medical Center, she threw a pebble into the pond that is still causing ripples.
Curran’s successor, Bruce Blakeman, argued that the seat Curran put Kayman in wasn’t hers to fill at that point, and appointed instead Matthew Bruderman, whom he then elevated to the chair.
Kayman sued NUMC and the county and last week, prevailed in a decision handed down by Nassau Supreme Court Justice Randy Sue Marber.
NUMC attorney and vice president Meg Ryan said that as far as the hospital and board are concerned, that’s the end of it, and, in fact, the hospital and Bruderman dropped their opposition to Kayman’s case on Oct. 12, a fact confirmed in Marber’s decision. Bruderman says he’s gotten to know Kayman a bit, likes her, and doesn’t want to keep making moves that divide the board.
But the case isn’t entirely over, and that’s largely because of how the board is divided.
In a statement to The Point, county spokesman Chris Boyle wrote, “The administration cannot understand how the court arrived at its decision since it is clear that the decision was not rendered based on the facts or law of the case. The county will appeal.”
As for why the county isn’t dropping the case, the nuance is in the numbers.
The 15-member board includes eight seats controlled by the governor (several of which must be filled with candidates recommended by Blakeman and Senate and Assembly leaders,) three seats controlled by the county executive, and four seats controlled by the county legislature.
It’s currently split 7-7 between Republican- and Democratic-appointed members, and the empty seat is one that Gov. Kathy Hochul gets to fill, but only with a candidate submitted by Blakeman.
That means it almost certainly won’t be filled, and it means the only current path toward a Republican board majority is by Blakeman tossing Kayman and filling the seat himself.
The county’s only public-mission hospital is bleeding cash and, according to its auditors, threatened with eventual bankruptcy and closure. The CSEA is demanding the thousands of jobs there be protected, and leaders in both parties are increasingly pressed to figure out how to do so, or how best to revamp the operation if they must.
In that context, keeping the hostility between Blakeman and the Democrats on and off the board, rather than between those forces and Bruderman, may be about letting the hospital run as smoothly as possible.
— Lane Filler @lanefiller
