Hartsdale Election Day Choices: Living with "The 20 Year Rule"

Elected offices are a zero sum game.  New elected offices are not being legislated into existence in Hartsdale.  Consequently, no new jobs are created during elections, only the identity of a bench warmer is selected to decorate the same worn chair. Only when an officeholder retires or, very rarely, is defeated,  those officeholders sitting at the lower end of electoral dining room are allowed to move one seat closer to the seat of honor at the head or the table.  Hartsdale voters are fortunate that we have to reupholster very rarely.

This Hartsdale voter is very impressed by the remarkable talent of local elected officials to cling to seats they obviously find comfortable and cushy.  TS, for example, has won elections every two years over the past twenty years to hold onto his coveted office.  He is still a relatively young man and has the potential to use his skills to challenge Robert Byrd's 57 year record for officeholding.  Our Congressperson, Nita Lowey, unfortunately will have no such opportunity.  Althoughshe and her constituents believe that her accomplishments during her past 22 years in Congress warrant giving her another 2 years to achieve even more, her age of 73 will preclude any Byrd-like nesting in the Rayburn office building. (One anticipates with nervous-excitement the shaken-soda bottle like spurt of chaos her retirement will have on Westchester politics, should that day every come). 

There are some surprise shifts in the Hartsdale electoral glacier this year.  Our state assemblyman Richard Brodsky will be leaving Albany after 28 years, following his very unsuccessful stab at running for NY Attorney General.  The candidate to replace him?  Why it's attorney Tom Abinanti who's finishing up 20 years as our Westchester County Legislator!

Sometimes the voters enforce the 20 year rule with a vengeance. Four years ago, Republican Nick Spano narrowly lost his state Senate seat after 20 years to Democrat Andrea Stewart-Cousins.  Today's election will determine whether Stewart-Cousins can continue on the path toward the double decade tenure that is the right of any Westchester elected official.  Of course, the most dramatic, surprise came last year when Andy Spano lost to Rob Astorino after his he held his office for a disappointing 12 years.  Mr. Spano was 73 when he failed in his quest for a fourth four year term and had been in public service for many years prior, so we'll give me credit for 20 years anyway.