Flanagan Replaces Skelos

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Below is the extended version of the printed column in The Jewish Press. Some of the information submitted was left on the cutting room floor due to space restrictions.

Flanagan Replaces Skelos

There is a new leader of the Republican majority conference in the state Senate and for the first time both houses of the legislature changed leaders mid-session. Both former leaders, Senator Dean Skelos (R – Rockville Centre, Nassau County) and Assemblyman Sheldon Silver (D – Lower East Side, Manhattan) are now rank-and-file lawmakers.

The new leader for the Senate Republicans is John Flanagan of East Northport, Suffolk County. The 54 year old spent 16 years in the Assembly, where he succeeded his father upon his death, before moving on to the Senate in 2003.

Flanagan’s father died of an unexpected heart attack, dramatically changing the course of the younger Flanagan’s life at age 25.

“I do have days, not every day, where I think gosh I should be talking to my father about this,” Flanagan recently told Statewide News Service.

Flanagan said there was the special moment after he won his election to the Assembly when he found some words of wisdom his father penned. “After my father passed away I found something in his desk that has always stuck with me. He was obviously writing a note to someone and he said, never offer an amendment you do not believe to be germane, never let the speaker editorialize his comments from the rostrum and never read from a prepared text.”

Flanagan, it turns out, always wanted to be a leader. In 2002, Flanagan vied to be the leader of the Republican conference in the state Assembly but lost that battle to Charles Nesbitt by one vote (27 to 26). This time, 13 years later, Flanagan rallied the troops among his Senate colleagues and won the battle over John DeFrancisco (R – Syracuse) 18 to 15.

There are 10 synagogues in Flanagan’s district, four of which are Orthodox. The district includes the communities of Stony Brook, Kings Park, East Northport, Smithtown, Setauket, Commack, Hauppauge, Farmingville, Selden, Coram and Port Jefferson.

Senator Simcha Felder (D – Boro Park, Brooklyn) played a pivotal role in electing Flanagan as Senate majority leader, providing the decisive vote in the Republican conference, although Felder did not necessarily believe there was a need for change.

“I think things were going very well under Senator Skelos so I don’t think Senator Flanagan’s ascension to the leadership was a referendum on Senator Skelos,” Felder told The Jewish Press after the vote.

Skelos, 67, turned himself in to federal authorities after being charged with extortion, fraud and bribe solicitation along with his son, Adam. Skelos represents a large wealthy Jewish district in Nassau County covering Oceanside, the Five Towns (Woodmere, Inwood, Cedarhurst, Lawrence and Hewlett), Long Beach, Atlantic Beach, Island Park, Baldwin, Valley Stream, Malverne, Lynbrook and his home base of Rockville Centre.

Flanagan and Felder have developed a fondness for each other in a brief period of time.

“We worked together on issues such as helping parents with children who need special education, making sure every child gets the education they deserve,” Felder said. “We’ve worked together on transportation, making sure that every child gets home safe without having to be subject to union demands. We’re still working together on the education investment tax credit.”

With Flanagan becoming majority leader, he gives up his post as Education Committee chairman. “Only if I was a masochist would I become chairman,” he said.

Flanagan was of counsel at the Uniondale, LI-based firm Forchelli, Curto, Deegan, Schwartz, Mineo & Terrana, a post he resigned from last week. Flanagan reported earning as much as $150,000 in 2013.

Flanagan, a Roman Catholic, was raised in Huntington where he attended Harborfields High School. In 1983, he earned a B.A. in Economics from the College of William and Mary in Virginia and in 1990 he received a law degree from Touro Law School. He resides in East Northport with his wife, the former Lisa Perez. Together, they have raised three children.

New Health Commissioner Confirmed

In an effort to show it’s business as usual in the state Senate, Dr. Howard Alan Zucker was confirmed as the new state health commissioner on Tuesday, May 5, the day after Skelos was arrested.

In Doogie Howser-style, lawmakers seemed to be in awed and wonderment by Zucker’s accomplishment of graduating from medical school, George Washington University, at age 22. He then earned his law degree from Fordham University at age 40 and last year he received a postgraduate diploma in global health policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He received his bachelor’s degree from McGill University in Montreal in 1979, majoring in anatomical sciences.

During his two confirmation hearings, Zucker was pressed by lawmakers on legalizing medical marijuana; the only current permitted use in New York is as a vapor, food, oils or pills but not smoking the weed. Senator Diane Savino (IDC – Staten Island) told Zucker that addiction to marijuana is a bio-psycho-social disease. When it comes to alcohol, tobacco or marijuana addictions, Savino said, marijuana is the least addictive. Zucker said he did not know (or) whether or not marijuana is a gateway drug to more harmful substance abuse.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was another topic of concern for lawmakers querying Zucker for more than an hour. Savino said PTSD is particularly problematic for veterans returning from a war zone.

Zucker, who has served as acting commissioner for a year, sailed through the confirmation process. His annual salary as commissioner is $136,000. Zucker, 55, is single, has no children and follows conservative Judaism, although he has not settled on a congregation in the Capital District where he now lives. Many lawmakers wondered out loud to Zucker with such a distinguished career in private practice and the federal government, why he would want to accept the post as health commissioner?

EITC Negotiations Continue

Despite the upheaval in the Senate, there is still an important issue that needs to be hammered out before the close of session next month, namely the education investment tax credit, EITC. This is a paramount issue primarily for parents in the Orthodox Jewish community as well as Catholic parochial school parents. Sources tell me that negotiations are continuing among staff in the Senate and Assembly and will not be tied to any other issue. I’ve been told by many decision makers in both houses that there will be an agreement next month.

Senator Velmanette Montgomery (D – Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn) told The Jewish Press she does not support the EITC but would not give a reason saying, “That’s above my pay grade.”

Assembly Celebrates Albanian Heroism During WWII

The state Assembly hosted a celebration with the president of Albania in Albany commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. The Albania connection is remarkable and unique in that there were ten times more Jews in Albania at the end of the war than there were at the beginning of the eight-year battle against the Nazi regime.

Also, not a single Jewish life was lost in Albania during the war. This accomplished through the code of honor known as Besa, which means hospitality and protection of one another for unselfish reasons. During World War II Albanians saved more than 2,000 Jews from Nazi persecution. Rather than hiding the Jews in attics or the woods, Albanians gave them clothes, Albanian names, and treated them as part of their families.

Albania is a country in southeastern Europe (fewer than 45 miles from Italy, which once occupied Albania during World War II) bordered by Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Greece. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea.

Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj, pronounced Joe-nai, (D – Pelham Parkway, The Bronx), the only member of Albanian descent, said the stories he heard were so touching to him he had to put together this gathering.

“Albania was a haven in Europe for the Jews as word slowly spread through the underground that this was the place that they could seek protection, shelter and be out of harm’s way. Jews made their way in [to Albania] from all four corners to this little country at a time that it was unknown to the Jews and the Jewish community was unknown to the Albanians. The Albanians also took children in and claimed that they were their own to hide them from the Nazis at the peril of their families. The Albanians gave the Nazis falsified documents just so they could protect the Jews,” Gjonaj said.

Scarborough Out, Richardson In

As soon as one Assembly seat is filled another one opens. William Scarborough (D – Queens) resigned his Assembly seat after pleading guilty to a $40,000 scam he perpetrated on the taxpayers by submitting travel vouchers and accepting reimbursements and per diem for days he was not at the Capitol in Albany. This brings the total to 48 lawmakers who were caught, canned and convicted for wrongdoing since 1983.

The same day that Scarborough appeared in court, Diana Richardson won a hotly contested race for the Assembly seat left vacant by Karim Camara, who accepted a post with the Cuomo Administration. The district covers parts of Crown Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and East Flatbush.

There was no Democratic Party candidate on the ballot due to an election-filing snafu. Richardson ran on the Working Families Party line and received 51 percent of the vote. Menachem Raitport, a Republican who owns a kosher butcher shop in the district, garnered 21 percent of the vote.

Turnout amounted to a mere 12 percent, according to officials with the state Board of Elections, with 8,205 votes cast out of 67,883 active registered voters in the district.

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