Cairo and Jacobs get cross-endorsed

Daily Point

Nassau County political chairs to be honored by lawyers' group

It's an unusual pairing in a time of deep partisan divide.

The Nassau Lawyers' Association, a long-standing fraternity of local lawyers and judges, is honoring both county political leaders at its annual dinner Tuesday night.

While neither Nassau Republican chair Joseph Cairo, a graduate of St. John's law school, nor Democrat Jay Jacobs who has a JD from Northwestern are likely to be the attorneys of record in any court case, they will know most of the judges in the room.

Jacobs and Cairo will receive the group's William Gitelman Award, named for a late Nassau District Court judge who was one of the organization's founders.

Jayson Wolfe, an elder care attorney and executive director of the bar group, told The Point that while the honorees are usually prominent members of the bench and bar, the award has also been given to someone "who is very important to the community."

Wolfe stressed that the event was nonpolitical. "We don't wear political hats when we go to these dinners," he said. Founded in 1947, the first honoree was A. Holly Patterson in 1954, then the county executive who later became head of the Nassau Republican Party.

Jacobs told The Point that this is perhaps the first time he recalls publicly being side by side with Cairo — "maybe on an LIA panel once." He said such events "could be a positive in the world for a change."

Cairo told The Point that he socializes with Jacobs now and then at a mutual friend's house where they only talk about sports and life events. "On the field we play as hard as we can. And if you play by the rules when the game is over you can work together until the next campaign," said Cairo. "Our relationship is somewhat unique given the way things are in the world today."

In his day job, Jacobs, also the New York State Democratic Party chair, has opposed Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in both his runs in 2025 and '26, including spearheading Gov. Kathy Hochul's efforts to take it to Blakeman in his campaign for governor. Cairo was with Blakeman for his trip upstate on Wednesday, joining the GOP candidate for the typical meet and greet at local diners.

At least 300 tickets have been sold for the $200 a plate dinner at Crest Hollow County Club, according to Wolfe, one of the event's chairs.

Eight years ago, Cairo and Jacobs started the practice of supporting candidates from the opposing party, known as cross-endorsements. Cairo told The Point it was a way of ensuring that good incumbent judges didn't lose reelection depending on the political winds of any election season. "It takes the fundraising and politics out of it for judges," he said.

So in some sense Tuesday's dinner may be considered the ultimate cross-endorsement.

— Rita Ciolli rita.ciolli@newsday.com

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Final Point

Blakeman's next stop

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is trying to raise his profile as he challenges Gov. Kathy Hochul, headed into Manhattan Thursday morning for an appearance on Brian Kilmeade's Fox radio show.

Blakeman, however, has never presented as the Dashing Dan commuter type, having long advocated for the region's drivers and opposing the effort to toll Manhattan's central business district that helps fund the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. But Thursday, Blakeman abandoned his county SUV and driver to join the commuting masses. He even posted a selfie of himself on a Long Island Rail Road train, heading to Grand Central Madison for his radio hit.

"Thank you to the great men and women of our unions who keep these trains running," Blakeman wrote.

On any other day, that might seem like an innocuous remark in support of LIRR workers. But Thursday, Blakeman's comment came just hours before representatives from five LIRR unions were going to sit down with MTA officials for a critical bargaining session. It's a harbinger of how the looming strike threat for later this month could play into his gubernatorial quest.

Is Blakeman taking the unions' side in the ongoing negotiations, even as Hochul has stood with the MTA? Blakeman previously suggested Hochul should "advance" the Presidential Emergency Board recommendations, which aligned with many of the unions' demands.

A Blakeman spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But it's worth noting that one of the holdout unions — the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers — is a division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose president, Sean O'Brien, spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention, where he called President Donald Trump "one tough SOB."

Whether those connections are playing a role now is unclear. But Blakeman's MTA representative, David Mack, told The Point that he and the county executive have spoken about the issue.

"I think he's pro-labor and he wants to do the right thing, not only for the union but from what I understand he wants to do the right thing for the riders as well," Mack said. "The county executive doesn't want a strike. It has nothing to do with the governor. It has to do with the economy ... This has nothing to do with the election. This has to do with fairness and getting it right."

Mack said he thought the unions' request for a 5% raise in the fourth year of a contract was too much.

"We want to make sure that the riders are happy and ... we want to encourage them to ride," Mack said. "We've got to do the right thing for both sides, and I'm speaking for myself and the county executive when I say that."

Hochul herself hasn't said much publicly about the MTA dispute in recent months, but the political consensus is that a LIRR strike would hurt her on Long Island. Last year, she focused on the desire to avoid a strike, which she said was being "encouraged by Donald Trump and enabled by his allies in Washington."

"The Long Island Rail Road is a lifeline for nearly 300,000 Long Islanders each day, and I stand firmly with every rider who simply wants to get to work, school, home, or anywhere else they need to go, without disruption," the governor said then.

Riders ... including Blakeman?

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

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