Reelect these four
New York City’s congressfolk typically skate through every two years in little-noticed, low-turnout primaries, winning reelection against unserious, underfunded opponents. We are happy, therefore, to see four long-time members of the House — Reps. Yvette Clarke, Jerry Nadler, Carolyn Maloney and Eliot Engel have spent a combined 99 years in Congress — forced this time around to defend their records against vigorous challengers.
Just because challengers have our admiration doesn’t mean they’ve won our vote. As pragmatists closer to Joe Biden than Bernie Sanders, we are wary of those with ideological multi-trillion-dollar plans on everything, without realistic plans to pay for them. They risk dragging the Democratic Party out of the mainstream and hardening political divides in Washington. Almost to a person, that describes these upstarts.
In Brooklyn’s 9th District, stretching from Sheepshead Bay to Park Slope, we recommend Clarke. The only black woman in New York’s delegation, she nearly lost the seat two years ago to Adem Bunkeddeko, a 32-year-old son of Ugandan refugees, who called her out for her legislative lethargy. Clarke’s been more attentive in her district since. If Clarke backslides, Bunkeddeko’s energy and intelligence would make him a worthy replacement.
In the obscenely serpentine 10th, stretching from the Upper West Side all the way into Borough Park, vote Nadler. The congressman’s main challenger, 36-year-old former state economic development official Lindsey Boylan, launched her campaign on the premise Nadler was too resistant to impeaching Donald Trump. Nadler smartly waited until evidence of Ukraine malfeasance mounted, a plus, not a minus. And he’s just about the only voice in Washington arguing for a cross-harbor freight rail tunnel under the Hudson, which would greatly benefit New York. Boylan opposes it.
On the East Side and into Queens, vote Maloney in the 12th District. She was a driving force behind renewal of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. We don’t buy that far-left challenger Suraj Patel, who backed “no new jails” Tiffany Cabán for Queens DA, would make a more effective advocate.
And across the Bronx and Westchester’s 16th District, we endorse Engel. A lonely Democratic voice against President Obama’s bad Iran deal, he chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Challenger Jamaal Bowman, an accomplished educator, is a welcome voice in the political arena, but he wants to choke off federal support for charter schools and thinks New York schools, which spend a tops-in-the-nation $22,000 per pupil, need lots more cash.
Two more years for these four.