Mr. Suozzi goes back to Washington
The Daily News was glad to endorse Tom Suozzi and repeat our support many times over the past few days and even gladder that our neighbors in Nassau and Queens agreed with us and returned the centrist Democrat to Congress to provide real representation after the aberration of Con(gress)man George Santos.
Suozzi squashed the unknown Santos in 2020, but in 2022, the fraudster snuck in when Suozzi made a failed run for the governorship.
Back in the House, Suozzi has the right priorities: bringing some sense to our busted immigration system with reasonable reforms, urgently needed military aid for democratic allies Ukraine and Israel fending off barbaric invasions from Russia and Hamas and fairness for New Yorkers by repeal of the unfair Trump-era limits on the deductibility of state and local and taxes (called SALT).
His victory also boosts the Democratic strength in the narrowly divided House, hopefully curbing some of the nuttier notions of Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s crazy caucus, which has made horrible history already by decapitating a speaker for the first time ever and impeaching a wholly innocent cabinet secretary, also a first.
Indeed, Johnson jammed through the impeachment of President Biden’s homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, on Tuesday night because he feared Suozzi’s win would have made it impossible.
Suozzi bested Mazi Pilip (a Democrat running on the Republican line) because he was a better candidate who ran a better campaign with a better message. He didn’t win because the district lines were rigged to favor one party over the other. During our endorsement interview, Suozzi told us that if he won the special election, he would run for a full term this November. So that means that he’ll have to start collecting petition signatures for the June 25 primary in just 12 days, on Feb. 27, and won’t even be sworn into office until Feb. 28.
The shape of the district for the next eight years will be decided by the bipartisan state Independent Redistricting Commission and the Democrats in the Legislature because the courts blundered badly. The IRC meets today. They should just leave the current lines alone. In 2022, the Albany Dems bypassed the IRC and drew an ugly ungainly district running around the shores of the Long Island Sound from Suffolk across Nassau, Queens, the Bronx and Westchester all the way to the Connecticut border, an unconstitutional gerrymander.
And it’s not just Suozzi’s constituents who benefit from keeping the current maps in place, all New Yorkers do.
We’d like to note that both the Nassau Board of Elections and the New York City Board of Elections, which runs the show in the Queens slice of the district, use the same voting machine, the DS200, manufactured by Election Systems & Software. Yet on Tuesday night, by 9:15, Queens had 46% of their vote counted and reported to the public, while Nassau had 0% counted. At 9:47, Queens was 99% complete; Nassau was still at 0%. Hey, Nassau, learn a lesson from the city board (we can’t believe we are saying that).
As for Suozzi, he’ll be collecting petition signatures on Feb. 27, but on Feb. 28, his first act when he’s sworn in should be to sign a discharge petition organized by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to force a floor vote on aid for Ukraine and Israel.