Bellmore-Merrick shifts to 4th Congressional District

Bellmore-Merrick Democrats are rejoicing and Republicans are reorganizing after a court-appointed magistrate recently redrew New York’s congressional district lines, moving the 3rd C.D., long represented by Republican Peter King of Seaford, further east, taking Bellmore-Merrick out of the district.

For the November 2012 election, Bellmore-Merrick will fall in the 4th Congressional District, now represented by Democrat Carolyn McCarthy of Mineola.

King and McCarthy, both 68, are longtime members of Congress –– King has served since 1993 and McCarthy since 1997. Both are national figures. And, despite their reputations as extreme representatives of their parties’ politics, their House voting records reflect a more centrist take on the issues, according to GovTrack.us, an online tool created by Civic Impulse LLC to track representatives’ voting records and activities.

King has made a name for himself with his strong, at times outspoken positions on homeland security, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2011, terrorist attacks. King, an attorney, served as Nassau County comptroller and a Town of Hempstead councilman before running for Congress.

From the start, McCarthy’s key issues have been gun control and health care. Her husband, Dennis, was killed and her son, Kevin, was seriously wounded in a shooting rampage on the Long Island Rail Road in January 1994, perpetrated by Colin Ferguson. The massacre, in which six people were killed and 19 others injured, prompted McCarthy to run for elected office. Before that, she was a nurse.

Local Democratic politicos said they were pleased that McCarthy, and not King, would be on the ballot in Bellmore-Merrick in November, in large part because they said they have for years felt ignored by King. Bob Young, the Town of Hempstead’s first deputy Democratic leader and president of the Bellmore-Merrick Democratic Club, said Democrats are planning a “liberation celebration” picnic to mark what they said would be a new era in Bellmore-Merrick politics.