For Republicans, a cautionary tale from Nassau County

Nassau County, east of Queens on Long Island, is home to more registered Republicans than any county in New York, and perhaps in the entire nation. New York’s Fourth District, located entirely within Nassau, was represented by Republicans for 54 years before Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy was elected in 1996. This year, with McCarthy retiring, was the party’s best chance of reclaiming the seat in two decades.

I was disappointed enough by Washington’s failures that I ran for McCarthy’s seat myself. Nassau County’s Republican machine had other ideas. Chairman Joe Mondello looked high and low for a candidate who could defeat me in a primary. My supporters who had political connections suddenly started telling me under the radar that they were afraid to support me openly, for fear of losing government jobs or contracts with the county or one of its townships.

Mondello’s lieutenants, unable to find anything salacious in my background, slandered me as a Democrat and a liberal. A former Republican Hill staffer, I had several staunch conservatives, including Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to vouch for the fact that I have been a conservative Republican all my life.

I lost in a low-turnout Republican primary — fewer than eight percent of registered Republicans voted — in which intimidated patronage workers put Mondello’s pick over the top. I wouldn’t necessarily complain about that here, except that the same party bosses who had worked with such zeal to defeat me immediately lost interest in electing their own hand-picked nominee. The county party raised $2.5 million this year and spent nothing to advance his candidacy. He had to self-finance, was outspent more than two-to-one, and yet lost the race by just five points.

Why would the bosses allow this? Simple: Their goal was to create a vacancy in the Nassau District Attorney’s office, which will soon be vacated by Kathleen Rice, the Democrat who just won the Fourth District race. After all, her current office comes with far more patronage than a mere congressional seat. And if that sounds conspiratorial, consider that as this was happening, Mondello’s allies were simultaneously helping Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo win re-election.

This was my third run against the Nassau County GOP – a top-down, patronage-driven autocracy reminiscent of the old urban Democratic machines. The Washington Examiner‘s Michael Barone has suggested in all three election cycles since 2010 that the party machine was booting decent chances in the Fourth District on purpose. Chairman Mondello, who has reigned for 31 years, fosters a clannish culture hostile toward outsiders. Primaries are shunned, because having voters choose candidates undermines the party bosses’ control of government.

Meanwhile, government in Nassau County is a big business that makes the bosses rich. Residents suffer from the most expensive local government in America, forcing legions of our residents to move to lower-tax areas.

In each of the last three cycles, the people who beat me in the primary were insiders who had served in the county legislature and were tainted by Nassau’s chronic fiscal problems. Each time, that fact combined with the local leadership’s lack of interest in winning kept off the radar what should have been a Republican pickup opportunity.

There is a lesson here. When Republicans ignore the primary process and subordinate the people’s role in selecting a party’s candidates to that of the bosses, we lose. Also, principles matter. This story illustrates to our nation’s newly elected leaders that democracy can be a fragile thing, and it can break if not handled with care.

Frank Scaturro is a former Counsel for the Constitution on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Republican and Conservative candidate for the House of Representatives in New York’s 4th Congressional District. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions for editorials, available at this link.