Liebman: State leaders’ MTA decision could impact LI commuters

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Gov. Kathy Hochul has now concluded the annual ritual of offering the State of the State Address; one filled with her vision for the new legislative year, one that is more aspirational than attainable, but it reveals her intent to run for re-election regardless of poll numbers, primary challenges or the comments from pundits.

But like a gravity well that is felt rather than seen, current Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins will have much to say about the Hochul agenda as evidenced by their trashing of the MTA’s $68 billion Capital Budget in the closing days of 2024. Their actions will likely be felt by every Long Islander who depends on the Long Island Rail Road, and those commuters will direct their ire to the elected officials responsible for such an action. Fortunately for Heastie and Stewart-Cousins, their names don’t appear on ballots east of the Queens line. But their Democratic colleagues’ names do.

Not that many years ago, Long Island Democrats sent to Albany were pummeled at the polls over Long Island’s collective anger over an MTA payroll tax on suburban businesses. After 2011, a number of those Democrats paid the price by finding themselves out of office after Election Day.

It would seem that Heastie and Stewart-Cousins either have short memories or a level of political arrogance when it comes to how they view Long Island. Their late-year actions over the MTA’s capital budget not only humiliated the governor, but was an indication of their mindset as well as their indifference to the fact that suburban Long Island is dependent on a viable, safe and efficient mass transit connection to New York City.

They also don’t seem to realize that an angry, focused and politically engaged Long Island constituency has the means of making their current Democratic majority vulnerable at the polls.

Why?

Political observers say these Democrats decided to confront fellow Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul by embarrassing her with a decision to derail the MTA budget. It was their not-so-subtle reminder that they have the ability to derail the governor’s agenda, irrespective of the political damage it may do to her, the state’s constituents and even the future of the MTA.

Say what you will about former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. However, if they tried that with him, there would have been blood on Albany’s State Street.

Prior to her State of the State, Gov. Hochul was among the keynoters at the annual Long Island Association State of the Region breakfast where more than 1,000 business, civic and government leaders gathered to hear the promise of state-directed infrastructure money,

“The businesses and the educational institutions and our whole corridor—our life sciences corridor—are really blossoming…and just moving so quickly in the future, because the Long Island Rail Road is the link to all of it,” Hochul said.

This is called the politics of good intentions. What Heastie and Stewart-Cousins demonstrated with the subtlety of a blasting cap is that without their buy-in, the governor’s promises to Long Island and elsewhere will face serious challenges. Through the rejection of the MTA Capital Budget, they flexed their political muscle in a manner designed to keep the governor up at night.

However, what these two legislative leaders need to appreciate is they do not exercise that power with impunity because if their partisan actions harm Long Island, their respective political caucuses will be harmed.  Long Island has the population, an engaged constituency, a powerful business community and a history of going after those state representatives who do not advocate on behalf of the region.

While they may seek to toy with the governor’s agenda in an Albany game of brinksmanship, Heastie and Stewart-Cousins must recognize that harming Long Island has the means to create political blowback so severe it can alter their world.

They would be wise to proceed carefully in their strategy of defining the governor’s agenda on their terms, or
2.8 million Long Islanders may define their world on our terms.

Josh Liebman is partner in the law firm Rosenberg Calica Birney Liebman & Ross, LLP in Garden City.