COMMUNITY NEWS

State Assembly candidates named in 17th District

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A 24-year-old Seaford man has announced he will run against New York State Assemblyman Thomas McKevitt, of East Meadow, this November.

Matthew Malinwas recently selected by the Democratic Party to run in the district that includes portions of Seaford, Wantagh, East Meadow, Levittown, Massapequa, Bethpage, Farmingdale and Uniondale. He is a graduate of MacArthur High School and Hofstra University, and last year ran for a seat in the Nassau County Legislature.

He said that last year’s experience, his first time running for office, gave him a taste of the election process that he said should benefit him this year. Malin explained that he gained knowledge of the campaign trail and got a sense of what people are looking for in an elected official.

He said that the biggest complaint people in the district have is about corruption in Albany. “As a young person with some new ideas and a distaste for corruption,” he said, “it definitely gives me an edge that would help the people of my community and my district.”

If elected, Malin said, he would seek campaign finance reforms. He said the election process is unfairly tilted toward candidates who can solicit large donations. As a relatively young candidate, Malin said he simply doesn’t have that base, and has to run a grass-roots campaign.

Malin criticized McKevitt, a 45-year-old East Meadow resident, for having once taken campaign money from now-convicted Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. “I believe he made a donation to me many, many years ago,” McKevitt said. “I’m not sure when, but it was quite some time ago. I was just as appalled by Dean’s behavior as anyone else. He went to jail, and that’s what should happen to those who break the law.”

McKevitt was first elected in February 2006, and is the third-highest-ranking member of the Assembly’s minority conference. He is currently the ranking minority member of the Committee on Consumer Affairs and Protection, and also serves on the Codes, Local Governments and Election Law committees.
McKevitt said that fighting corruption has been a major issue for him for the past decade, and cited the recent passage of a bill that moves the state one step closer to taking pensions away from convicted elected officials.

“I have been leading this charge,” McKevitt said. “Those in the majority have not been joining us in that battle. I think I come from it as an independent voice, not entrenched in the majority. I speak what I feel is the right thing to do for the people.”

Another accomplishment he cited was the recently passage of a bill related to “zombie” homes. The law puts the burden on banks to ensure that homes are not sitting vacant for long periods of time. “I want those houses to be on the market and sold to new people who are willing to fill them and make them productive homes once again,” McKevitt said. “We’re trying to expedite the process to make this occur.”

For Malin, other important issues include gun control and equality. Even before the shooting in Orlando, Fla., he said, gun reforms were needed, and if it isn’t being done on the federal level, New York can certainly enact its own laws. “I don’t understand the need for automatic weapons, and I think they should be banned countrywide,” he said.

In college, he worked as an intern for Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, a gun control advocate, in her Washington, D.C. office. Malin said he also supports laws protecting transgender individuals.

The state should also do more to force Grumman and the U.S. Navy to clean up the toxic plume that is affecting the water supply in the eastern part of the 17th District, Malin said. More testing is needed, he said, as well as a plan to remove the underground pollution.

McKevitt said that the Assembly has begun to look into term limits, particularly for its leaders. “So much power is invested in the speaker,” he said. “I think we have to have more democratization inside the Assembly chamber.”

Malin said he believes that if he is elected, he could be effective. In addition to being a member of the majority party, he also said that he could work well with others to do what’s best for Long Island. “I believe that I would have the ability to have a good working relationship with people from both sides of the aisle,” he said.

McKevitt countered that he has a proven track record, citing efforts to reduce the tax burden for the middle class and increasing state aid for schools. He also said that he prides himself on good constituent services.

“I am responsive to people in the community,” he said. “I stand on a very good record of standing up for Long Island and standing up for my district. The middle-class income tax is the lowest level it’s been in decades. I understand what it’s like to be a homeowner and a father and about meeting those demands of providing for a family. I bring those concerns to Albany when we are trying to work on legislation.”

Malin was a political science major at Hofstra and currently works for the Nassau County Board of Elections. He is also an Eagle Scout, and he said that experience is part of the reason he wants to run for office. “From a very young age, it was always instilled in us as Boy Scouts to take care of our community and try to make a difference any way we can,” he said.

Julie Mansmann contributed to this story.