By Barrett Seaman–
In sharp contrast with the District 17 free-for-all between Mike Lawler and Mondaire Jones, televised the night before on News12, the untelevised League of Women Voters District 16 debate between Democrat George Latimer and Republican candidate Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser at the White Plains Library was a model of decorum and substance.
The two candidates for Congress answered questions ranging from free speech and campaign financing to the Supreme Court, affordable housing, abortion and education. Answers from each largely stayed within the prescribed time limits, and inspite of the current political climate, the two—one a seasoned public servant, the other a pediatrician-turned-citizen/activist—found at least some common ground.
With his long career in elected office, starting with the Rye City Council and on to County Legislature to State Assembly and Senate and most recently as two-term County Executive, Latimer has accumulated—and demonstrated throughout the debate—an intimate knowledge of how local governments work.
Dr. Levitt Flisser, former mayor of Scarsdale who practices medicine in Bronxville, allowed that she did not belong to any political party and expressed views that were rarely ideological. She made several references to her experience as a refugee from Soviet-ruled Lithuania who was smuggled out of that country at the bottom of a mail truck and recalls vividly first seeing the Statue of Liberty from a Marine troop ship.
Her personal history clearly informs her views on immigration policy: she spoke approvingly of her assimilation process in which a guarantee of financial support from a relative kept her from being forced to work. She decried the lack of clarity in contemporary immigration policy that she believes allows criminals into the country at unnecessary cost and threat to taxpayers.
Latimer focused on the failure of Republicans to push through last year’s bipartisan border security bill because of Trump’s opposition. He allowed that the asylum system is currently overwhelmed but recalled how he had suggested that the federal government open a branch of the immigration court in White plains to help relieve the backlog—a suggest he says, “fell on deaf ears.”
With his long career in public office, Latimer was able to cite many specifics in his responses, while Dr. Levitt Flisser tended to reply based on limited personal experience. Case in point: infrastructure. Latimer cited several specific needs in Westchester, ranging from power plants in Coop City to wastewater treatment in Yonkers to flood remediation in Mamaroneck. Levitt Flisser mentioned a rainwater retention basin built during her administration in Scarsdale.
On campaign financing, Levitt Flisser spoke of her opposition to a New York State provision that doles out taxpayer money to political campaigns for things like palm cards and yard signs. Latimer named two Supreme Court cases, Buckley vs. Valeo in 1976 and Citizens United in 2010, that he said wrongly equated campaign contributions (a.k.a. money) with free speech. “If you’re looking to get big money out of politics,” he told the small audience, “you’re going to have difficulty because those two Supreme Court decisions make it impossible to do that.”
In response to a question about affordable housing, Levitt Flisser expressed strong support for local zoning control, based on her experience fighting a large apartment complex in Scarsdale. Latimer agreed that local government should control zoning but went on to suggest that higher levels of government, including the federal one, can encourage affordable housing through incentives. Under his administration, he said, Westchester “has allocated more money than any prior administration, and we did it with the support of local government.”
On health care, Latimer honed in on Trump’s claim that he had “a concept” of a replacement for the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a Obamacare) without any specificity. Levitt Flisser stated that “everybody should have access to healthcare benefits” but focused on the inordinate amount of time doctors like herself had to spend filling out bureaucratic forms and ordering frequently unnecessary procedures as a defense against malpractice suits.
They agreed that packing the Supreme Court with more justices was a bad idea and that the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction should be restored. They both expressed strong support for Israel (a major intraparty issue in Latimer’s primary fight with Jamaal Bowman). Both thought that abortion should be decided by the woman whose pregnancy was at stake, albeit in consultation with her physician. They agreed that guns should be kept out of the hands of criminals, though Latimer backed universal background checks while Levitt Flisser did not.
Their strongest point of disagreement was on climate change and the environment. Latimer touted Westchester’s conversion of its bus and county vehicle fleet to all-electric and its expansion of recycling on his watch. After Levitt Flisser opined that it was too early to “take away our cars, particularly when we have fuel available,” and that the country was not ready to adopt alternative sources of energy,” Latimer asked for what was the debate’s only requested rebuttal. “There is no excuse for minimizing what we’re seeing,” he said with noticeable passion. “It’s foolish to deny that there is climate change. Foolish!”
The exchange concluded on a note of civility, with both candidates complimenting the other. To the extent they differed, said Latimer, it was “all within the proper dialogue of democracy.”
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