Newsday Editorial Board: Laura Gillen for New York’s 4th Congressional District

Newsday : "We said two years ago that Gillen was the best choice in the 4th District and we stand by that recommendation."

Ahead of today's debate in New York's Fourth Congressional District, here's a reminder that Laura Gillen is proving she's the common-sense, steady candidate in an election the Newsday Editorial Board calls "a barometer of voters' tolerance of the culture of brazen nepotism."

In their editorial board endorsement of Laura Gillen, Newsday highlights that Anthony D'Esposito's time in politics encompasses nearly a decade of stacking salaries and voting for family member's raises - a nepotistic streak dating all the way back to 2017 when the newly minted town council member placed his "fiancee and her son on the Village of East Rockaway payroll."

With the New York Times recently exposing D'Esposito for placing his fiancée's daughter and the woman he was having an affair with on his congressional payroll, the Editorial Board finds it "disqualifying" that D'Esposito still somehow insists "he did nothing wrong."

Gillen, on the other hand, has fought the Nassau County GOP's "patronage and crony-contract machine before," running her 2017 town supervisor campaign with an "anti-patronage, anti-corruption" core. Newsday praises Gillen for her work to bolster flood insurance and water quality in the district, her positions on immigration reform, and her fierce advocacy for issues like SALT deductions.

Laura Gillen - who the Editorial Board calls "smart, tenacious and relentless in pursuit of her goals" - is the clear choice for New York's 4th Congressional District.

DCCC Spokesperson Ellie Dougherty:
"Laura Gillen has spent her career tackling corruption in Nassau County, and she's ready to continue delivering for Long Island families in Congress. Anthony D'Esposito has proven himself an out-of-step embarrassment to New York's Fourth Congressional District, and Long Islanders have never been more ready to vote him out of office."

Newsday: Laura Gillen for New York's 4th Congressional District
Newsday Editorial Board | October 11, 2024

• The race is also another chapter in Gillen's rage against the patronage and crony-contract machine, which led to her startling win in 2017 as town supervisor, the first Democrat to hold the job in more than [a] century.

• Gillen, who ran then on an anti-patronage, anti-corruption campaign, had good reason to go after nepotism. Earlier that year, D'Esposito was appointed to a seat on the town council while on unpaid leave as an NYPD detective. Soon, he garnered another gig, working full time at the honeypot of patronage, the Nassau County Board of Elections, specializing in security assessments of polling areas. The $100,000 salary for that job was in addition to the $71,000 he was collecting as a councilman.

• Here is what the editorial board wrote at the time: "This week in the Town of Hempstead, Councilman Anthony D'Esposito voted to give a raise to his mother, Carmen D'Esposito, a highway department secretary who will earn $88,939 a year. That's nice work, and the D'Espositos get lots of it. Anthony's brother, Timothy D'Esposito, got a salary of $92,411 in 2016 as a captain in the town Department of Conservation and Waterways. Anthony's sister-in-law, Danielle D'Esposito, had a 2016 salary of $52,468 as a tax clerk. And Timothy and Anthony's dad, Stephen D'Esposito, was chief of staff for Supervisor Anthony Santino, earning $169,000 a year."

• After he won election to the House in 2022, D'Esposito took the Hempstead culture to the federal level, becoming a benefactor. As The New York Times revealed, D'Esposito put the daughter of someone described as his longtime fiancee on his congressional payroll as a staffer in his local district office a salary of $3,800 a month. Soon after, he hired part-time at $2,000 monthly another woman with whom he was in a relationship. Turns out she also had a full-time job with the town. Was the congressional position a no-show job? If not, D'Esposito had working in his district office both the daughter of the woman he was engaged to and the woman he was currently befriending.

• It was an echo of 2017 when D'Esposito, newly on the town council, placed that same fiancee and her son on the Village of East Rockaway payroll.

• In his editorial board endorsement interview, D'Esposito said he did nothing wrong: "There was absolutely no violation of ethics in either hiring." Asked whether he would do it again, he replied, "If there's no ethics violations, there's absolutely no issue." That's disqualifying.

• Gillen, who served one term as supervisor, is smart, tenacious and relentless in pursuit of her goals.

• We said two years ago that Gillen was the best choice in the 4th District and we stand by that recommendation. Newsday's editorial board endorses Gillen.

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