Unity was the theme at last Thursday’s forum for those seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for New York’s First Congressional District, at a moment of both opportunity and peril for the party.
Jackie Gordon and Suffolk County Legislators Bridget Fleming and Kara Hahn made a case for their respective candidacies during the virtual event, which was co-hosted by the Democratic Committees of Southampton and Brookhaven Towns.
With the recently redrawn boundaries that make the district more hospitable to a Democratic candidate, and the incumbent Republican representative vacating the office to seek election to governor of New York, Democrats see a golden opportunity to pick up a seat in the House of Representatives. But the party that holds the White House historically loses seats in midterm elections, and high inflation and violent crime, among other concerns, further threaten Democrats’ slim majority in the House.
The forum featured “three outstanding candidates,” said Gordon Herr, chairman of the Southampton Town Democratic Committee. “We have to support whoever wins the primary” on June 28, he said, and the Southampton Committee “will absolutely make sure that’s the case. This is our best chance to win the seat.”
Drawing on current events, he said that a Democratic pickup is especially important “after we hear Trump and other Republicans praising Putin for his behavior.” As he spoke, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin had just ordered an invasion of Ukraine; the former American president quickly called Mr. Putin’s move “genius” and “savvy.”
The stakes could not be higher, Ms. Hahn agreed. “It’s important that we recognize how urgent and critical” victory in the district is, she said. “The future of our nation depends upon it. There is too much at stake.”
Ms. Fleming pointed to her re-election in November, an otherwise dreary election for Democrats on Long Island and elsewhere, to demonstrate her electoral viability. “It looked like folks were going into the voting booth to register a complaint against Democrats,” she said, yet they continue to support her.
The district has a large concentration of veterans, immigrants, teachers, social workers, hospital workers, and union members, Ms. Gordon said, and “I check every single one of those boxes. I have walked in those shoes, and understand the struggles those people face.” She is “battle tested,” she said, having run unsuccessfully in the Second District in 2020. Ms. Gordon was again a candidate in the Second District until the redrawn boundaries put her residence in the First.
The candidates were largely in agreement on the topics addressed, and mentioned individual accomplishments to make a case for their nomination.
Division is the country’s biggest problem, Ms. Gordon, an Army veteran, said. It was while serving in the military that she learned that “we can focus on what we need to do and getting the job done” without regard to who is on one’s left or right. “I will work with my colleagues no matter who they are.”
Ms. Fleming, who sought her party’s congressional nomination in 2020, is an attorney, a former assistant district attorney, and former chairwoman of the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee. “I have had these levels of responsibility throughout my career because of my ability to get the job done,” she said. “We need folks who can parse out what the law is and figure out how to work within the system to get the job done.”
Polarization and “the assault on our democracy” through efforts to restrict voting get in the way of solving problems, Ms. Hahn said. “We need leaders who will be above that.”
All of the candidates prioritize restoration of the full deductibility of state and local taxes, which was sharply reduced in the 2017 tax overhaul and disproportionately hurts Democratic-leaning states like New York. Ms. Fleming and Ms. Gordon said that restoration would be the first bill they would introduce in Congress.
For Ms. Hahn, passage of the For the People Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would be her first undertaking. “It’s imperative that we get our act together and pass universal voting laws,” she said, while ensuring that people can vote safely “and that it counts.”
The “overriding, long-term” issue in the district and in the wider world is climate change, Ms. Fleming said, indicating coastal erosion and flooding in the district as already-observed manifestations. The federal Army Corps of Engineers, which is implementing the Fire Island to Montauk Point shoreline reformulation project, must work with local officials, “which they’re not always good at,” and government should incentivize green energy such as residential solar.
Climate change is an existential threat to Long Island, Ms. Hahn said. She spoke of electrification of public transportation and mail delivery trucks. “I am still hopeful for a future where we aren’t passing down a world that is simultaneously flooding and on fire to our children.”
Health care is a basic human right, the candidates agreed, and the Affordable Care Act must be maintained.
The district needs a work force that is trained for present and future industries, all of the candidates said. As construction begins on the South Fork Wind farm, having workers equipped for jobs in the manufacture, operation, and maintenance of offshore wind installations is critically important, Ms. Hahn said, as are partnerships between labor and institutions of higher learning to “create a pipeline for these clean energy jobs.”
There must be investment in technical education, agreed Ms. Gordon, a teacher. Long Island was once a manufacturing hub, she said, and “we could really create a pipeline from high school all the way to college into the unions or into jobs.” The guarantee of a job to those who “stay on this pathway” would keep young adults in the district, she said.
Representative Lee Zeldin, the incumbent, voted against the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would expand labor protections, Ms. Fleming said. With more than 90 percent of Long Island’s energy produced by fossil fuels, “we have an opportunity to shift that.” The South Fork Wind farm’s project labor agreement represents “a great win for working men and women on Long Island. . . . We need to revive manufacturing by transitioning workers from fossil fuel-dependent undertakings to renewable energy.”
