Some GOP candidates look to rebrand with a new third party line

Daily Point

Voters don't have to pull a lever for 'R' or 'D'

There are more ways to a voter’s heart than just the Republican or Democratic party lines.

Almost 3.2 million registered voters in New York State aren’t enrolled as Democrats or Republicans, leaving plenty of room for candidates to appeal to unaffiliated voters. That’s the thinking behind Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s Vote Affordable line.

Blakeman, running on the Republican and Conservative party lines against incumbent Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, has an uphill climb in a blue state with twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans. In a straight numbers matchup, it would be a monumental feat for Blakeman to beat Hochul since there are 6 million registered Democrats in New York compared with just 2.8 million registered Republicans.

But Blakeman’s Vote Affordable line is targeting the 3.1 million unaffiliated voters. If enough independents can be convinced to support Blakeman on the Vote Affordable line, his electoral chances improve. Blakeman’s Facebook campaign page even states "Make New York Affordable."

"It’s a legitimate tool for a campaign," Michael Dawidziak, a longtime Republican consultant, told The Point. "They’re trying to attract votes from people who agree with a particular issue."

Blakeman’s not the only candidate filing for the Vote Affordable line. Incumbent Republican State Sen. Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick and Shannon Fredericks, who is running for the 14th Assembly District on the Republican and Conservative party lines, also filed for Vote Affordable.

Blakeman’s Vote Affordable line also drew the attention of upstate candidate Allen Caruso, who is running on the Republican and Conservative party lines for AD113 and announced on social media that he submitted more than 2,000 signatures under the Vote Affordable line.

In a statement to The Point Monday, Blakeman said: "Over 60,000 New Yorkers fed up with Kathy Hochul making NY unaffordable with $8 billion in tax hikes, 48 utility rate hikes, and 21 toll and fare hikes organized the grassroots movement to remove Hochul as Governor."

Voters may also see other new party lines on their ballots this fall. Former Lawrence Village Mayor Martin Oliner successfully petitioned to get on the November election ballot for Hempstead Town supervisor under the Citizens not Developers line.

The race for CD4 in Nassau got even more crowded with Blay Tarnoff qualifying on the Libertarian line. Incumbent Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen is running for reelection, and Republicans Jeanine Driscoll and Marvin Williams are in a primary battle. General objections have been filed against the petitions of Oliner, Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, Fredericks and Tarnoff. The deadline for specific objections is Thursday.

In Suffolk County, Riverhead Town Supervisor Jerry Halpin, who won a close race last year on the Democratic Party line, has a third party line this year called Protect The Taxpayer.

Dawidziak said so-called issue lines like Vote Affordable hark back to the last century when Ratepayers Against LILCO and Concerned Citizens Against LILCO were used by Democrats and Republicans, respectively, to compete for voters who wanted to send a message.

The issue lines "attract votes from people who agree with a particular issue," Dawidziak said. "Even if someone already knows they’re going to vote for Bruce Blakeman, they may want to send a message by voting on the Vote Affordable line."

— Mark Nolan mark.nolan@newsday.com

Pencil Point

A lose-lose

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Final Point

No ceasefire in House map wars

Election experts say they have never seen anything quite like this.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry suspended congressional primary elections — even after an estimated 42,000 votes were cast in the state’s primary. The postponement followed an 11th-hour U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricting racial considerations in drawing district lines.

There was a similar, confusing jolt in the process for Alabama voters. The high court also allowed the GOP state to revert to an old map. So the votes that Alabamans cast on May 19 were voided and a new special primary set for Aug. 11.

Has partisan ferment reached the point where ballots are cast and then canceled?

As Jeff Wice, a redistricting expert affiliated with New York Law School recalled, this state’s 2001 primaries had to be suspended on the day they were scheduled — Sept. 11. Of course, that delay was exceptionally necessary, stemming from the infamous terrorist attack. People had begun voting at 6 a.m., before the planes struck the World Trade Center later that morning. Still, New York managed to hold its primaries two weeks later, even as Mayor Rudy Giuliani pushed for authorization to stay past the legal end of his term that December.

For New York, this mid-decade battle over district lines, started by President Donald Trump’s Republicans seeking to prevail in the midterms, could rock election schedules with court drama lasting into the late 2020s, with the dominant Democratic Party looking to amend the state constitution.

The lines in New York are settled for this year despite a last-ditch, failed effort to break up the Staten Island district of Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, canceled by the Supreme Court.

But under a proposed constitutional amendment, now filed in the final days of the state legislative session, Democrats would find it easier to gerrymander late in the decade. Before the current national polarization between the two major parties, states would redistrict political seats once a decade, purportedly to adjust to the census. Not now.

The plan is for the State Senate, Assembly and Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign off on the proposed amendment this year. The required second passage of the same bill would go before next year’s newly elected class of legislators, then go to the voters in November 2027, in an off-year. That could allow the Democrats to try to draw a handful more assured seats for themselves, including those now held by Malliotakis and mid-Hudson GOP Rep. Mike Lawler.

At the moment Long Island’s four seats are split 2-2 between the parties. Now, there is talk of changing the map in a way that could make the Island delegation 3-1 Democratic. 

But if the national scenario softens, will legislative leaders back off selling the amendment? Voters rejected a redistricting referendum in 2021, an off-year, after a strong Conservative Party campaign against it. "New York cannot afford to stand still. We cannot ignore the reality that Republicans have repeatedly sought to undermine democracy through various attempts to gain political advantage," New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins was quoted by Politico as saying this week.

Meanwhile, Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), co-chairs of the congressional Problem Solvers Caucus, announced a bipartisan working group aiming to reform "the process that has led to extreme partisan gerrymandering across the country." Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) is vice chair of the group.

Whatever follows might be called peace negotiations. But no path to a settlement seems likely to appear until after the November elections.

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

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