Bitter regional rivalry surfaced in last week’s special Senate race in northern New York that could set a tone in the Capitol's partisan wars. While Democrats charged that GOP state funding of Long Island’s “wealthy” school districts bleeds their own, Republicans kept more to tradition by bashing their foes as beholden to New York City.
Cathy Calhoun, a state Democratic committee official who managed the successful Darrel Aubertine campaign — thus narrowing the Senate GOP’s majority to 32-30 — hurled 11th-hour zingers about Nassau and Suffolk school money at Assemb. Will Barclay, the Republican candidate.
“I would just tell all our school officials to lock up the safe for the next few days, because the same people who have taken our school funding away for years are here to help Will Barclay,” she said in a news release.
Calhoun cited GOP Long Islanders who traveled to the snowy burgs of the 48th Senate District to help Barclay. GOP volunteer Rose Marie Walker, the Oyster Bay board member, was quoted by Newsday as saying Long Island and the 48th “share a common bond.”
“The only common bond is that we’re both paying taxes to support wealthy Long Island school districts,” retorted Calhoun — calling Walker a “card-carrying member” of Nassau’s “infamous (GOP) machine” and listing among her partisan connections that she’s the mother of Assemb. Rob Walker (R,C,I,WF – Hicksville). Calhoun quoted Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos as “gleefully” saying after last year’s budget, “What the Republican senators did was to drive aid to the suburban school districts.”
Tom Dunham, Skelos’ spokesman, on Friday said Calhoun had.....
Dan Janison
......misinterpreted Skelos’ statement. “The changes that the Long Island Republican delegation secured helped all suburban districts — not just those on Long Island. Upstate got $200 million in additional money and Long Island got $100 million.”
In the $3 million-plus contestBarclay ran an attack ad saying he “supports Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s budget proposal” in which “school aid upstate and in our Senate district will be cut to increase aid for schools in New York City.” Yet the city teachers’ union backed Barclay.
Asked Friday about the Long Island barbs, Doug Forand, chief strategist for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said: “Every senator... is going to maximize the aid coming to their district. Will Aubertine fight for northern New York? Yes. Craig Johnson will fight as hard as anyone to make sure Long Island schools are well funded.” But 8 of Long Island’s 9 Senators are Republican — a quarter of the majority — while 22 of 30 Democratic senators come from New York City, with Johnson the sole Long Islander.
In the Democratic-run Assembly, Charles Lavine (D-Glen Cove) was asked about local consequences should his party win the Senate next fall. “It’s going to happen. The question is how that is going to impact Long Island and the rest of the state,” amid a rough economy. “We will have to figure out some way to make sure that our interests are protected.” He spoke of a unified front as occurred with last year’s record school funding.
Comments (1)
How could you have missed the significance of the teachers union
supporting the Republican candidate? The upstate (conservative)
Democrats were our allies... in the All-County Taxpayers Association. I'm glad he won. When it comes to school aid our LI
Senators are panderers of the worst kind. Of course they think they would lose their cushy jobs and perks if they bucked NYSUT. But didn't Aubertine win? And didn't he support vouchers -- the 3rd rail of public education (and Democratic) politics ? Times they are a changing !...