While it might not be the reality, many of the voters in the United States have the opinion the country is split down the middle between left-wing Democrats and hard-right Republicans.
As a result, Rabbi Ben Kean, the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Abraham-Jacob, a Modern Orthodox congregation in Albany, began his sermon from the pulpit earlier this month with the final paragraph of President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. Lincoln’s speech on Saturday, March 4, 1865, was presented from a large makeshift stage in front of the White House.
“I read the passage because I sought to draw inspiration and wisdom from another period of U.S. history in which our society was deeply divided and needed healing,” Rabbi Kean said.
Lincoln’s speech included these words: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as G-d gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
In New York State, the political breakdown is the opposite from what Congress will be coping with next year when President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office on January 20, 2025. While Congress and the White House will reflect the trifecta of Republican victories, New York’s government is controlled by Democrats from the governor’s office to both houses of the legislature – the Senate and the Assembly chambers.
As results in the Assembly and Senate continue the process toward being certified and officially authorized, not much will change in New York.
In the 63-member state Senate, the Democrats will continue to control the upper house by a margin of 41 to 22 seats. One seat that encompasses the Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst neighborhoods in Brooklyn flipped from Democrat to Republican. Steven Chan beat out Iwen Chu 55 to 44 percent. Chan, 55, was born in Hong Kong, served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1984 to 1990, and earned a high school diploma from Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn.
Approximately one-third of the incumbents in the state Senate ran unopposed – 7 Republicans and 15 Democrats had a free ride this year. There were three members who left the Senate on their own volition through retirement, a successful run for Congress, and another member who wanted to run for Congress but then dropped out of that race and left the Senate under a technicality in election law. Another seat in western New York was filled earlier this year when the incumbent ran and won a seat in Congress. One senator, Zellnor Myrie, who represents central Brooklyn including the mostly chassidic neighborhood of Crown Heights, has declared his intention to run for mayor of New York City next year.
When the new session begins in January, the split between Democrats and Republicans in the state Assembly will remain 103 to 47. The Republicans failed to meet their goal of lowering the Democrats’ hold below the 100-seat mark. While this is mostly symbolic, it would allow the Assembly Republican caucus to have a greater say in what happens in the lower house. A two-thirds majority (above 100 seats in the Assembly) of any one party can claim a supermajority, which is important when the chamber wants to override a gubernatorial veto without needing any votes from the opposing party. Since the Democrats control state government, a high level of rancor would have to break out for a veto override to take place.
This election had 57 of the 150 Assembly members running unopposed – 15 Republicans and 42 Democrats. There were two seats flipped from Democrat to Republican and three seats flipped from Republican to Democrat. Republicans had a net loss of one seat.
In January, the Republican minority will be welcoming seven new members into their ranks, while the Democrats will be adding 13 new faces to their conference. The 20 new faces in the Assembly are the result of incumbents who either retired or failed to get on the ballot. Of those 20 new members, two ran unopposed.
One interesting note is from three Democrat Brooklyn lawmakers who also ran under the Conservative party banner. They are Jaime Williams, Simcha Eichenstein, and the newly elected Kalman Yeger. Two of them, Yeger and Williams, also accepted the Republican line.
Another notable addition to the Assembly is Republican Daniel Norber, a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, where he served as a staff sergeant in the military police. Born in the United States and raised in Israel, he was drafted when he was seventeen. Norber unseated incumbent lawmaker Gina Sillitti, a Democrat. Norber’s grandparents survived the Holocaust, and his mother escaped Communism in the Soviet Union. On his website, Norber wrote that his parents raised him “to understand service, sacrifice and the importance of freedom.”
Norber joins another new member with ties to Israel, Democrat Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, 38. Rozic, a Queens Democrat, was born in Jerusalem and raised in the United States.
Another notable change in the Assembly centers on a Rockland County race where incumbent John McGowan, 39, was ousted by Aron Wieder, 50, a Rockland County legislator and a member of the Belz chassidic sect. Wieder defeated McGowan by a margin of 52 to 44 percent.
Wieder, who did not have a campaign website and was outspent by McGowan, was elected to the East Ramapo School Board in 2008. Over the course of his three-year term, he became the vice president of the board and then took over as president of the board toward the end of his term. He said the issues facing the East Ramapo district were the center of his campaign and will be his main issue during his time in office. This was Wieder’s fourth try for the Assembly seat.
The East Ramapo school district is reported to have a $31.5 million surplus. “The East Ramapo School District is considered to be one of the wealthiest, while a majority of its public school students are eligible for free and reduced lunch because of [low] income and considered poor. Does that make sense to you? It does not make sense,” Weider told The Jewish Press. “If you have a majority of kids in any given school district eligible for free or reduced cost lunch because of poverty, how can that school district be considered to be one of the wealthiest school districts in the state? It makes no sense.”
He said the fiscal monitor overseeing the school district was forecasting a deficit such that the school district would not be able to open its doors come the next school year. “My question is who is monitoring the monitors? I called for an investigation about how this came about because people were duped into paying more property taxes, which [are] very high in the first place based on a false pretense by the monitors,” Wieder said.
He said his campaign slogan, “Dedication, Experience, and Results” helped get him across the finish line first. “That’s basically my record,” Wieder said. “I know exactly what I’m getting into. I’ve been a county legislator for close to 13 years. I’m excited about this new challenge in my public career and I hope to make a positive difference in the lives of my constituents.”
Wieder lives in Spring Valley with his wife, Sara, a lifelong Rockland resident, and their four children. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he attended the Machzikei Hadas yeshiva followed by rabbinical college in Israel.
There are more Jewish legislators elected to New York State’s Assembly and Senate than at any other time. There are 25 Jews (16 percent of the chamber) in the Assembly, six of whom are observant. There are five Senators (.08 percent) who identify as being Jewish; only one, Simcha Felder (D – Midwood, Brooklyn) is observant.
