Jack Martins, Tom Suozzi tout efforts toward change in Sands Point

Noah Manskar

Both Republican Jack Martins and Democrat Tom Suozzi last Wednesday said the North Shore needs a congressman who can work across the aisle to create change in the increasingly polarized Congress.

In their first joint appearance, at the Sands Point Preserve Conservancy, the candidates in the Third Congressional District espoused moderate policy positions and pledged to continue going against the political grain.

Martins and Suozzi, the likely general election candidates to succeed Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) in the district stretching from northeastern Queens to northwestern Suffolk County, touted moves they described as political risks that created concrete changes before the crowd of more than 150 people.

Both candidates agreed on a need for gun control and unwavering support for the state of Israel, but differed on health care and immigration reform.

Both sons of immigrants, Martins and Suozzi dismissed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s proposal to deport millions of undocumented immigrants but diverged on whether those already here should have a path to citizenship.

Both spoke of  failures of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, but Suozzi said there should be a public health insurance option similar to Medicare while Martins said over-regulation of the health industry has made things harder for consumers.

Martins, a state senator and former Mineola mayor, touted his work in Albany to pass laws with bipartisan support, such as the “common sense” SAFE Act gun control bill, this year’s $15 minimum wage plan and other measures that drew the ire of both the far left and far right.

The winner of November’s election should be able to leave Congress better than he found it, said Martins, touting his work to cut Mineola’s $33 million deficit.

“We need people who are willing to work across the aisle, people who don’t see the world in Rs and Ds, people who are willing to find common ground to get things done,” said Martins, an Old Westbury resident.

Echoing his message in the Democratic primary, Suozzi, a former Nassau County executive and former Glen Cove mayor, said he has a record of standing up to “powerful interests,” citing his fight for the state property tax cap and his “Fix Albany” campaign to get bad lawmakers out of the state Legislature.

Suozzi repeated his pledge to form a bipartisan “band of doers” to craft moderate legislation and repeal “arcane” laws that cost the government money.

“There’s something not working in our system, that the system is not changing to make the changes that we all … say, ‘Why don’t they just do this, why don’t they just do that?’” Suozzi said.

Decrying a lack of action following another recent spate of gun deaths, Martins and Suozzi said they support universal background checks and banning gun sales to people on the FBI’s no-fly list. Both also criticized last year’s nuclear accord with Iran and stressed the importance of the United States’ alliance with Israel in the dangerous Middle East.

Martins said the U.S. should  bring undocumented immigrants “out of the shadows,” but said there is no “political will” for a path to citizenship.

“People don’t cross borders, cross oceans, in order to collect a check from the government,” Martins said. “They’re coming here to provide for themselves and their families and hopefully to seek a better life.”

But Suozzi said law-abiding immigrants should have a path to citizenship, adding that Republicans have made immigration reform a partisan issue with “hateful rhetoric.”

“We cannot let this issue become an excuse for racism, which it has in this country,” he said.

The  race to succeed Israel, a prominent Democrat who decided not to seek a ninth two-year term, will draw lots of attention and money from national political entities that will “try to create caricatures of us,” Suozzi said.

The race is a chance for the district to choose a new representative in an election cycle that has great implications for the whole country’s direction, Martins said.

“They showed a real centrist nature, both of them, and I think that’s reflective of the centrist nature of the district itself,” said Peter Forman, president of the Sands Point Civic Association, which hosted the event.

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