Tuesday, December 10, 2024
The 6th State Senate District hasn’t had a Republican representative since 2018 — when then Sen. Kemp Hannon had occupied the seat for 29 years — but Thomas Montefinise aims to change that in November.
Montefinise, an Oceanside native, graduated from Oceanside High School, and then went to Nassau Community College before transferring to Hofstra University, where he earned a degree in history. He went on to finish a law degree at CUNY School of Law.
He has had a diverse career, with jobs ranging from repairing commercial kitchen equipment at a friend’s business to managing municipal contracts and real estate matters at the Nassau County attorney’s office. He has also practiced matrimonial, family and criminal law.
One of the key issues Montefinise is campaigning on is the rising crime that he says is affecting his neighborhood and communities across Long Island. He is particularly critical of the state’s bail reform law, which allows those charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies to be released while awaiting their court dates.
“There’s a lot of crazy stuff that I see going on,” Montefinise said at a recent Herald Roundtable. “Bail reform, cashless bail — I mean, I represented criminal defendants, and everybody deserves to have their stories heard. (But) there’s a process. Everybody deserves a day in court, but you also need to give the tools to the prosecutors and police to be able to get their job done, because if people start feeling like they can’t call the police to help them, and feel like they can’t rely on the prosecutor to protect them, the system falls apart.”
Also on next month’s ballot is a proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would ban discrimination based on many types of discrimination, including age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
Montefinise said he read through the proposition once, and based his understanding on his law school education.
“I do think that there are legitimate reasons, sometimes, to make a categorization based on sex and gender,” he said. “This is based on the way I’ve been reading it, and kind of where I think they’re heading. They’re trying to elevate that to strict scrutiny, (and) strict scrutiny means no classification can ever be made.”
Montefinise said he was also concerned about the state of middle-class people living on Long Island, and described them as being “squeezed out.”
“I think one of the major things that we need to look at is making sure that we don’t increase spending and we reallocate spending,” he said. “We need to look at where the dead weight is. Where are we throwing money?”
He used the ongoing influx of migrants as an example.
“We need to raise and be able to lift up wages, and be able to incentivize programs,” Montefinise said. “That’s really what we need to do. We have to reallocate money. I think what we’re doing is we’re cutting money, and we’re spending it in all the wrong places.”
Engaging with constituents is essential for anyone running for public office, and Montefinise noted that he has been actively listening to district residents who share their concerns and needs, a process that has been new territory for him.
“I’ve met a lot of people,” he said. “I’ve never done something like this before, but I’ve been hearing about the economy, prices of goods, inflation, and safety. It’s been an awesome experience.”
