Four Democrats made a case Monday night for their nomination to challenge Representative Lee Zeldin in New York’s First Congressional District, presenting policy positions that were largely in sync.
Again and again, they took the opportunity to tie the incumbent to President Trump. Given Mr. Zeldin’s fervent defense of the president through an impeachment trial, a pandemic that has killed more than 105,000 Americans, double-digit unemployment, and the past week’s social unrest, voters could be forgiven for coming away from the debate thinking that Mr. Trump is the congressman’s running mate, or vice versa.
The debate, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and North Fork, brought together Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, Perry Gershon, Nancy Goroff, and Greg Fischer via videoconference. It was broadcast live on the YouTube channel of SEA-TV, Southampton Town’s public access channel. Cathy Peacock of Amagansett was the moderator.
“To beat Lee Zeldin, we need someone with the profile and a proven record of accomplishments for the district,” said Ms. Fleming. “Our cities are on fire. The pandemic was mishandled from the beginning . . . Our government has been complicit. Our congressman has been complicit.”
Mr. Zeldin “ghosts his constituents,” said Mr. Gershon, who ran against him in 2018 and lost by four percentage points. Mr. Gershon has held monthly town halls since September, most recently online. “I’m the only candidate engaging with voters on a constant basis. I know the district, the people,” he said.
Ms. Goroff, who is on leave from Stony Brook University, where she is chairwoman of the chemistry department, emphasized her credentials as a scientist. “I knew we needed a government that’s trying to make people’s lives better and basing policy on facts and reality,” she said. “I was so frustrated and infuriated at Trump and Lee Zeldin and their allies’ willingness to ignore facts and evidence on issue after issue in a pandemic.”
Mr. Fischer, a business strategist, said people are “looking for a congressperson who can take action, lead from the front, and put together what we need in this time of crisis.” Before the pandemic, he said, “I did create an economic plan for revitalizing America, and it’s never more needed than now.”
Asked to name issues where Democrats and Republicans might agree, Ms. Fleming called herself a problem-solver known for reaching across the aisle. There is broad consensus on immigration reform and “control of the epidemic of gun violence,” she said, but obstruction has come from special interests. She said Mr. Zeldin had a “perfect record” from the National Rifle Association. “We can get beyond that,” she said.
Ms. Goroff said her top priority in Congress would be “meaningful action on climate change” and that she would be “a resource for members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, making sure they have access to the best information available . . . and holding their feet to the fire to make sure we take meaningful action.”
Mr. Gershon referred to job creation by investment in infrastructure, including renewable energy. “Obviously, it starts with getting Donald Trump out of the White House” in favor of “someone whose goal is conciliation,” he said. With a unifying president, “we could actually pass policy, and take it beyond infrastructure . . . We can build on the Affordable Care Act, make sure Americans understand health care is a right and not a privilege.”
Getting beyond partisanship “takes one thing first: to get apart from ‘hate’ politics,” said Mr. Fischer. “I ask viewers to take the example of the candidates and how they present themselves today. Are they presenting solutions or hate politics?”
With regard to economic development as the country begins to emerge from the pandemic, Ms. Fleming criticized Mr. Zeldin’s No vote on the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (the HEROES Act), last month. “Zeldin let us down on that,” she said. “I will not.” She referred to her establishment of the county’s renewable energy task force.
Mr. Gershon said environmentally sensitive infrastructure was a way to stimulate the economy. “Jobs on Long Island, building sewers, developing clean energy — jobs that pay $30, $40 per hour, not $15-an-hour service-sector jobs.”The pandemic has exposed stark inequality in access to quality health care, Mr. Gershon said in attacking Mr. Zeldin and his Republican colleagues. “Since they failed in Congress, they are using the courts to try to overturn the Affordable Care Act,” he said. Ms. Fleming and Ms. Goroff also expressed support for universal access to health care and strengthening the A.C.A. People should be permitted to “buy into Medicare,” Ms. Goroff said, “or allow their employers to buy in as a public option.” More broadly, “We must address inequities that are all part of this syndrome of communities of color being disproportionately affected” by the pandemic.
“The environmental policies of Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are a disaster for the world, and particularly for eastern Long Island and Suffolk County,” Ms. Fleming said, “where the natural environment is part of the engine that drives the economy.”
Sea level rise could “wipe out life on Long Island,” Mr. Gershon said. “We’ve got to get off fossil fuels as soon as possible. Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are doing the opposite, moving backward, promoting big oil over clean energy.” The components of offshore wind farms could be built within the district, he said, noting that Mr. Zeldin has not delivered federal money for sewer infrastructure.
Nor, said Ms. Goroff, has Mr. Zeldin intervened in “a very cynical attempt by local Republicans to force homeowners to pay taxes on grants” for low-nitrogen septic systems.
“We have created a generation of homeless millennials,” said Mr. Fischer, who touted 35 years of experience in starting companies and his membership in the Service Corps of Retired Executives, a volunteer network of business mentors. Millennials “can’t afford to go out on their own, buy houses, get apartments,” he said. “We have to turn this on its head.” He proposed a revamping of the tax system, with reduced paperwork and penalties. “We have sold our economy out with so-called free trade.”
Ms. Fleming referred to her advocacy for affordable housing as a member of the Southampton Town Board. “The way we did it is by bringing in someone who had a real understanding of state and federal tax credits. We can’t count on federal support unless we are sure we have a Congress member who has knowledge and experience to fight those fights for us.”
Mr. Gershon cited his career as a real estate lender. “I know something about real estate values, how to facilitate fair development,” he said. Government could fund housing for the middle class, he said, as well as provide young adults an opportunity to reduce student loan debts in exchange for national service. “Let them do things that will improve our society through the public sector and reward them for it.”
The evening’s only disagreements came when Mr. Fischer cited a hospital staffer who’d told him of being supervised during the pandemic by a podiatrist, a dentist, and an optician, but “not by people with experience in emergency care. That’s unbelievable,” he said, “and negligent.”
Mr. Gershon argued that the crisis required “all hands on deck, everyone mobilized,” amid a system unprepared “because the Trump administration did not have the testing and we did not understand the virus.”
Ms. Goroff went further, criticizing Mr. Fischer’s earlier mention of what he called an effective and inexpensive prevention against Covid-19 infection, which is featured on his website. “One can put up a website anytime with supposed cures,” she said. “In order to actually have something legitimate, it needs to be tested and carefully vetted, and one report — as the president and Mr. Fischer can learn — is not sufficient evidence to say a medicine will work and have the desired effect, especially in a disease like Covid, where so many patients get better on their own.”
The winner in New York State’s June 23 Democratic primary will face Mr. Zeldin in the general election, on Nov. 3.
