The 10th Congressional District debate on Wednesday saw much broad agreement on the issues among the six leading contenders, but in a primary this competitive, hostility does quickly bubble up.
They all supported congestion pricing and see Texas’ busing of migrants to New York as a stunt.
“If Mayor Adams does make good on his promise-slash-threat to go down and campaign against Governor Abbott, would you join such an effort?” asked co-moderator and NY1 political anchor Errol Louis.
The hands of all six Democrats shot up.
But the squabbles were not far behind.
Former House Democrats impeachment counsel Dan Goldman and his investment portfolio were frequent targets.
“Your FEC financial disclosure shows that you have investments in Fox News, the largest disinformation machine this country has ever seen,” Rep. Mondaire Jones told Goldman.
.@MondaireJones asks @danielsgoldman about his investments in Fox News and weapon manufacturers. pic.twitter.com/pUJReqH4iB
— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) August 11, 2022
“You were involved in the very first impeachment,” Elizabeth Holtzman said to Goldman, who was the House Democrats’ lead counsel in the case against Donald Trump. “You saw the damage that Fox News did to your investigation, to your impeachment effort.”
Goldman agreed that Fox News is a threat.
Responding to Jones, he said, “Whatever you want to reference, I was in a blind trust with all my money when I was a prosecutor. I will put my money in a blind trust as a congressperson.”
City Council Member Carlina Rivera and Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon separately said they would amend their investments so News Corp., Fox News’ parent company, was not a beneficiary. Holtzman’s financial disclosure report shows she also is invested in the index fund that holds News Corp.
The race to represent lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn features a diverse field of candidates who worked at different levels of government.
The moderators asked: What do the local and state leaders know of national issues?
“I know what it is like also to work on the federal level because I actually used to work for the federal EPA in their office of international and tribal affairs,” said Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou.
And what do those with federal experience know of local issues?
Goldman argued he worked as a “federal prosecutor in the district where I protected the communities, stood up for the victims,”
Some hyper-local debate topics gave candidates a chance to show how well they know the district, including on improving the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and on the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project
“You identified some really important issues,” Simon said. “One was the cantilever was built in a very narrow area.”
Rivera said: “We have 18,000 families living in public housing in NY-10, 96% of them live in a flood evacuation zone.”
"Land use is never without controversy in New York," @CarlinaRivera said of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project.
— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) August 11, 2022
"Every hurricane season where we don't have another Sandy is a bullet dodged." pic.twitter.com/ij5FyMv1Nj
And the six again agreed in condemning Donald Trump and other Republican leaders for their role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
They noted that the country is more deeply divided now than it was during Watergate, when Holtzman was on the House Judiciary Committee.
The former congress member, Brooklyn district attorney and city comptroller said, “I really think that what happened was that the country came together when there was accountability in Watergate.”
The early voting period begins on Saturday, Aug. 13.
Primary Day is Aug. 23.