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Free Yemen Eye – from RIVERDALE PRESS<\/p>\n
Tom Suozzi\u2019s path to the governor\u2019s mansion won\u2019t be an easy one \u2014 especially since he\u2019ll have to win a June 28 Democratic primary that includes a popular incumbent, fellow Democrat Kathy Hochul.<\/p>\n
But Suozzi isn\u2019t deterred, convinced that Hochul is vulnerable thanks to a few missteps and what he says is a hard lean to the left since her ascension following Andrew Cuomo\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n
\u201cKathy Hochul was wrong for the job,\u201d Suozzi told a team of reporters in the Ballot Session roundtable. \u201cShe came in saying, \u2018You know, I\u2019m going to be a breath of fresh air. And there\u2019s going to be the most transparent, most ethical government in the history of New York. I\u2019m not going to be Andrew Cuomo.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But then Hochul passed what Suozzi called the state\u2019s \u201cmost secretive budget\u201d in decades, which included what he described as a \u201cbillion-dollar\u201d giveaway to the Buffalo Bills for a new stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no public hearing,\u201d Suozzi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the biggest giveaway in the history of the NFL.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 59-year-old has represented a good portion of Nassau County as a congressman since 2017, eight years after spending two terms as Nassau\u2019s county executive, helping to quell a governmental financial collapse. He first took elected office in 1994, as mayor of Glen Cove \u2014 a city of 28,000 people in Nassau \u2014 where he earned high marks for his environmental efforts in cleaning up old industrial sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cNassau County was rated the worst-run county in America when I got there,\u201d Suozzi said. \u201cI turned it around, and got it into the \u2018A\u2019 ranks. I left with the lowest crime rate in the history of Nassau County. I turned this county around.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in Congress for five and a half years,\u201d he added, \u201cand I\u2019ve given up Congress to run for governor because I just feel so strongly about what\u2019s wrong with our state, and it needs to be fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, it\u2019s Congress where Suozzi says most of his preparation to take over as governor took place. He is vice chair of the House\u2019s Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of 58 congressional members evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with the hope of bringing about more bipartisan consensus.<\/p>\n
Among the caucus\u2019s successes include President Biden\u2019s $1 trillion infrastructure plan, Suozzi said, which made it through both chambers this past year.<\/p>\n
Suozzi\u2019s biggest focus in his primary challenge, however, is crime. He opposes the state\u2019s cashless bail policy, and even took heat last month for tying bail reform to the May 14 shooting in a Buffalo supermarket that claimed the lives of 10 people.<\/p>\n
Talking to the Ballot Session roundtable, Suozzi instead blamed Hochul for not enforcing existing \u201cred flag\u201d laws that would remove guns from those who authorities believed could threaten the safety of others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not been implemented,\u201d Suozzi said. \u201cWe have to teach the cops. We have to teach the teachers. We have to teach the social workers, the mental health people. We have to teach the family members that we have this great tool, and we can take the guns away from people who are mentally unstable.\u201d<\/p>\n
One recent study of congressional primaries showed that the chance of an incumbent being ousted in a primary is virtually nonexistent. But then again, this is New York, where incumbency doesn\u2019t guarantee much of anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do things to build relationships,\u201d Suozzi said. \u201cI won\u2019t compromise my values, and I\u2019m not going to vote for something I don\u2019t believe in. And having been doing politics since I was elected mayor of Glen Cove in 1993, I know how to get stuff done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Free Yemen Eye – from RIVERDALE PRESS Tom Suozzi\u2019s path to the governor\u2019s mansion won\u2019t be an easy one \u2014 especially since he\u2019ll have to win a June 28 Democratic primary that includes a popular incumbent, fellow Democrat Kathy Hochul. But Suozzi isn\u2019t deterred, convinced that Hochul is vulnerable thanks to a few missteps and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":84281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/84281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}