Our Friend in the Senate Lost by 4,000 Votes

By Efraim M. for COLlive.com

I have previously written why it’s crucial for the Jewish community to vote, and why voting in the Democratic primaries is the most important of all. Now I’d like to explore two specific areas where we could have had an influence if there was a community-wide effort to vote.

State Senator

From 2015 through 2018, Jesse Hamilton represented Crown Heights and the rest of Senate District 20 in the New York State Senate. While not all of his policy positions were necessarily in line with what we would have liked, he nevertheless made an effort to show that he cared about our concerns. He spoke out against antisemitic attacks (unlike his successor), he opposed BDS, and he publicly denounced Obama’s Iran Deal. In addition, his office called many residents to ask for their input and whether they had any areas of concern that they wished to pass on to the senator.

As some of you know, until after the 2018 midterm elections, the State Senate was controlled by the Republicans. This meant that they had the ability to defeat any legislation coming from the Democrat-controlled Assembly that was either unreasonable or far left.

While normally the party in control has a majority of the chamber’s seats, in the case of the New York Senate there were more Democrats than Republicans. However, since a few Democratic Senators—including Jesse Hamilton—caucused with the Republicans they effectively made their “group” the majority and that gave them control. Under that arrangement, so-called “Bail Reform” as well as other bad laws would never pass.

This coalition raised the ire of many on the Left. As a result, in 2018 a group of Democrats spent money and promoted candidates to run in the Democratic primary against all the senators that teamed up with the Republicans, campaigning against them and vilifying them. Unfortunately, they were successful in defeating all of them except one, giving control of the State Senate (and the entire state government by extension) to the Democrats. As a result, they are now free to pass whatever they want.

In the case of Senator Hamilton, he was defeated by his opponent with less than 4,000 votes, which means that if all the Jews in his district voted, he could have prevailed.

The Brooklyn District Attorney

When criminals are arrested, whether for antisemitic violence or another crime, the District Attorney’s office acts as a prosecutor in court and asks the judge for a sentence that they think is appropriate. The judge then decides whether to accept that recommendation or to give a sentence that’s more lenient. So if the DA requests a three-year prison sentence for an antisemitic attack, the judge may give one or two years. But if the DA only asks for a few months, the judge might go even less than that.

This is why it’s important to elect a district attorney that’s tough on crime and won’t try to give violent criminals minimal sentences. Unfortunately, there’s nothing compelling the current DA to be tough on these defendants as he knows we don’t vote anyway, while other communities who want him to go soft on these criminals do vote. So in effect, they (and their needs) are what he caters to, as he doesn’t feel beholden to non-voting constituents.

Keep in mind that when the authorities are tough on crime, it has a ripple effect that deters many future crimes from even happening in the first instance. Obviously this is the best possible scenario that we all want.

Conclusion

While there are more examples of why it’s crucially important for our safety (and other interests) that all Jews vote in each election, I’ll suffice for now with the ones above, and just remind everyone once again that if we want things to change and politicians to start taking our needs seriously, it will only happen if they see that we vote, as that will make them want to be the recipient of those votes.