Long Island officials blasted the state’s new election law that is expected to reshape local campaigns — and benefit downballot Democrats.
Members of both parties held a news conference Tuesday to call out Gov. Kathy Hochul for signing the law that pushes local races to even years, the same years when federal elections will be at the top of ballots.
“For over 100 years, our local elections were held on odd years,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman (R) said outside of Farmingdale Village Hall. “What is this all about? It’s about state control — the state trying to run our counties, towns, villages, and cities from Albany with one party rule.”
Blakeman and legislators from Suffolk and Nassau counties accused Albany of trying to distract voters by making them focus on broader state and national issues — not the ones affecting them in their own backyard.
Republicans pointed out that New York experienced a decent swing right in the last presidential election — and claimed state lawmakers were trying to stop the GOP from gaining traction in suburban areas.
They said Long Island — which recently saw a Republican presidential candidate win Nassau County for the first time since 1988 — is being targeted while deep-blue New York City is exempt from the law.
“They’re trying to take the local issues and put them down the ballot so that people won’t have an opportunity to have a fair debate, and talk about the things that are important to county government, the town government, the city government, and village government,” Blakeman said.
“Our local elected officials and our candidates want to talk about local issues and not get drowned out by the national media and the state media,” Blakeman added.
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine (R) echoed the concerns, slamming the law alongside legislators from his county.
“This is not the way the government is meant to work,” Romaine said.
“There are local issues that I can talk about, many of them that have no relation to state or federal issues, that are going to be drowned out — and that does a disservice to our local government — the government that’s closest to the people,” he added.
Despite the backlash to the law, a New York state court ruled last week that the law is constitutional — reversing a lower court’s ruling that would have blocked the change.
The law had been signed in 2023, but the first elections that will be affected are this year when local candidates will run for shortened terms to begin realigning elections to even years.
The court rejected arguments that the law violated the rights of counties to control their own elections, stating that while the state Constitution allows counties to adopt their own forms of government, the judges found that it doesn’t grant them exclusive authority over when elections are held.
Blakeman and Romaine said the fight is far from over and confirmed they are joining the appeal to New York’s highest court in an effort to overturn the ruling and protect local control over elections.
“Even if we do not prevail, which I am hopeful that we will — this is a battle that will continue,” Romaine said.
The governor told reporters the change is about “democracy” and trying to attract a larger voter-turnout for local elections.
“When it’s a year when there’s not the top of the ticket being the president of the governor’s race, a lot of people just don’t show up — and then you have special interest groups and special interest voters who are able to have a lot more influence on an election,” Hochul told reporters.
“I just think this is about democracy. More people tend to vote in those other two elections, even years, and why are we afraid to allow the voters to show up and elect who they want? Why not make it easier for them?”
