This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated August 5, 2022
The August 23 primary is fast approaching, with early voting beginning August 13. This second primary of the year was added after a court ruling mandated that the new congressional and state senate district lines be redrawn.
Primaries are always low-turnout affairs, which is why candidates in contested races on the ballot this August are campaigning hard, not only to make their case to voters, but to remind them that there is a primary this month and why it is important they vote.
Primary Election Day is Tuesday, August 23 and early voting runs from Saturday, August 13 through Sunday, August 21. To vote via mail, the last day to apply for an absentee ballot is Monday, August 8. Information on you Primary Day and early voting sites, which are often different, can be found by visiting vote.nyc, as can instructions for absentee ballot voting.
In Southern Brooklyn, there is no more important race for Democratic primary voters than that of the newly drawn state senate district 26. Its boundaries were mapped out in a hastily, court-ordered process in May, stretching from Dyker Heights and Bay Ridge in the south, through Sunset Park, Park Slope, Gowanus, Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and Boerum Hill, to its northern end in Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, and Dumbo.
The race for this new, oddly put together district pits current Senator Andrew Gounardes against David Yassky. The two candidates had originally been running in separate districts until the altered lines finalized in May put their home addresses in this new district.
Democratic voters in Southern Brooklyn know what Senator Gounardes has meant to their community, as well as to all of New York state, the past four years. From his work for his constituents in Southern Brooklyn to his prodigious legislative accomplishments in Albany, having passed over 60 bills in his two terms , Gounardes has been one of the most impactful senate members these past few years.
David Yassky last served as an elected official in the City Council 13 years ago. His most recent position in government was as top advisor to former-Governor Cuomo from 2019-2021, before the disgraced Cuomo was forced to resign over the myriad cases of abuse and harassment that State Attorney General Letitia James reported in 2021 were rampant by Cuomo with nothing done within his administration to address them.
Yassky’s ties to the Cuomo camp have been talked about throughout this campaign, with allegations that team Cuomo is putting their weight behind Yassky. Gounardes was quick to condemn the former governor and call for his resignation in 2021 when Cuomo’s pattern of harassment and abuse became clear from the many women who came forward to tell what they experienced in their interactions with him. Recently, campaign filings showing that Yassky received a $1,000 donation to his campaign from a fellow former-Cuomo top aide who had helped smear accusers, demonstrated this close relationship to Team Cuomo.
“The odd part about these workplace stories… It’s not even close to what it was really like to work there day to day… It was so much worse… But for me, it never really bothered me… It was part of the deal.”
Josh Vlasto, on working in Andrew Cuomo’s office, from a series of messages Attorney General James’s office released as evidence
The donation was from Josh Vlasto, who was named throughout the Attorney General’s Cuomo report and considered part of the governor’s inner circle. Vlasto has acknowledged that the “abuse and mind games” were “so much worse,” stating that while he worked for Cuomo “it never really bothered me,” adding, “It was part of the deal.”
Yassky does not seem to have spoken out against Cuomo at any point. On Twitter, where Yassky shared his thoughts on many topics between March and August of 2021 – from the time accusations against Cuomo snowballed and electeds like Gounardes called for his resignation to when Cuomo left office – Yassky never once tweeted anything about it. A simple Twitter search shows that the only references to Cuomo that Yassky has ever made have been positive.
Southern Brooklynites need someone who will not only speak out for them but who will speak out against what is wrong in politics. On March 16, Gounardes’s bills that will hold elected officials responsible for the kind of harassment Cuomo inflicted on staffers, was signed by Governor Hochul, almost exactly one year after Gounardes had called for Cuomo to resign. Southern Brooklyn and the state senate need someone like Gounardes to continue to serve in Albany, holding people like Cuomo to account, not people who cozy up to Cuomo’s camp for their own personal benefit.
