Ninth State Senate District: Re-elect Todd Kaminsky

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he 9th State Senate District includes a wide swath of southwestern Nassau County, from Long Beach to Rockville Centre, as well as parts of Valley Stream, Elmont and the Five Towns. It is not only wide, but increasingly diverse, with growing Black and Hispanic populations. The district requires a representative in the State Senate who has a broad perspective on a number of key issues, including the environment, education, taxes and bail reform.

That representative is the incumbent, Democrat Todd Kaminsky, who won a special election in 2016 and has served with distinction ever since. 

Kaminsky is chairman of the Senate’s Environmental Conservation Committee, and was the author of a measure of key importance to the South Shore: the New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. It is an aggressive program whose intent is to lead the transition to a green-energy economy and carbon neutrality.

Kaminsky also supported the state’s new bail reform law, which took a major step toward freeing defendants awaiting trial who could not afford bail by limiting the number of crimes for which judges could set bail — mostly felonies. Kaminsky has since made adjustments to the law, adding several more crimes for which judges can set bail.

A former prosecutor in the Queens district attorney’s office and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, Kaminsky sponsored legislation to take pensions away from officials who are proven to be corrupt, toughened anti-bribery laws and increased oversight for government contracting.

The 42-year-old senator, who lives in Long Beach, is a regular at local civic events, and has lent his support to the city’s struggling Martin Luther King Center.

His opponent, Victoria Johnson, who has worked for Long Island Republican state legislators, is likable and plain-spoken. But she focuses mostly on one issue — her opposition to the bail reform bill. That is not enough to elect her to the Senate.

Kaminsky has shown himself to be reliable, responsible and thoroughly familiar with the 9th District and its issues. We enthusiastically support his re-election.