9/13 Primary Election: Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs

Coming off of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions these past two weeks, most of your focus might be on November’s general election. However, those of you in the 42nd Assembly District have got a pretty hotly contested primary this Thursday, September 13, to pay attention to.

Longtime Assemblywoman (and Assistant Speaker since 2003) Rhoda Jacobs is being challenged by District Leader Rodneyse Bichotte. While Jacobs has had competition before, this is certainly the most visible and organized opposing campaign in recent memory. And given that the district votes heavily Democratic in the general election (Jacobs won by 84% in 2010 and by 87.6% in 2008, both against Republican Alan Kessler), this is probably the one that counts.

Jacobs recently spoke with me in her district office on Nostrand Avenue about the election as well as about state politics in general.

“What do you really want to talk about?” she asks sitting down in her conference room after what appears to have been a long day visiting senior citizens across the district. “You want to talk about me, you want to talk about the campaign? You want to be political; you don’t want to be civic.” Both, I say.

Jacobs knows how — and is used — to running a room, a quality that can come across as a little prickly. But spending 34 years in Albany means developing a tough skin. And beneath that prickliness is a surprising willingness to be blunt.

When asked what she thinks the differences between her and Bichotte are, she replied, “I don’t know if it’s incumbent on me to see the differences.” Intentional or not, her use of “incumbent” was an interesting choice of words and reflective of a larger theme in this year’s elections. Are people voting for a candidate or against an incumbent, and which argument are they more likely to listen to?

Speaking about the district, Jacobs takes on a protective, almost motherly, tone. She wants to make sure I understand that “this district is very diverse and that Ditmas Park and Victoriana are only small part of it…[It’s] largely apartment dwellers interspersed with enclaves of Victorian homes.”

In fact, she feels that people’s impressions of how some communities dominate the district can be somewhat skewed. Referring to the Orthodox Jewish community south of Brooklyn College, she says, “It’s interesting because each entity in the district thinks that that’s what elects me.” The district’s diversity is something Bichotte has latched onto, saying Jacobs is not adequately representing certain segments of the population. In return, Jacobs has called her campaign divisive.

Eventually, Jacobs acquiesces to the question of differences between her and her opponent. The main one, she says, is her longevity and senior position in the Assembly. “I don’t just think that being here a long time is really what it is, but the truth is we have a long history of knowing the people, a long history of knowing where to come, but we also have some of the things that seniority gives you — a greater ability to legislate on behalf of your constituency…and you have more staff. You can do more for people.”

This is also one of the reasons she’s not as concerned about the redistricting that happened this year as a result of what she calls the “poor job” done on the 2010 census. But she says that some of the people who have become part of her district are actually people who she used to represent. She’s confident in her ability to connect with them, claiming that “many of [them] have continued to come to our office because our office is known as a high service office. And it is. We have a lot of people who are needy. They really need assistance. We run interference for them, we cut the red tape, we get their benefits, we help them find jobs, you name it.”

One of the main advantages of seniority, she points out, is an ability to “get bills passed.” One such bill she recently sponsored and passed extends the limit of the maximum length of stay, from 135 days to 180 days, at residential programs for victims of domestic violence.

In terms of legislation, Jacobs highlights her work with health care and immigration. She’s a Ranking Member on the Committee on Health as well as the Committee on Insurance and notes that the district has a large percentage of health care workers, especially registered nurses and home health aides. She claims responsibility for two key initiatives from early in her Assembly career — childcare at CUNY/SUNY and working to get rid of insurance companies’ practice of redlining certain economic areas for exclusion from coverage. Recently, she’s been working to prevent the closing of five Brooklyn hospitals, including Kingsborough Psychiatric Center.

She recognizes that her district is “to a large degree an immigrant population,” which includes a lot of undocumented workers. As such, she’s co-sponsored legislation that creating the New York DREAM Fund to provide tuition assistance and other services to children of immigrants. She stresses that it’s important to address immigration on the state level regardless of whether the national DREAM Act passes Congress.

Of course, one reason immigration hasn’t been addressed nationally is the ever-growing partisan divide making compromise near impossible. We’ve certainly seen that our state legislature isn’t immune to this but I wondered if Jacobs had noticed any difference between the culture when she first came to the Assembly in 1978 and now.

“When I first got there, there were four women. If you had to go to the bathroom, we had to run all the way around the Capitol. So that’s a change.” Despite the fact that she’s built up relationships with legislators on the other side over the years, though, she does think it’s gotten harder to work together. “Partisanship now has really gotten worse. Thank your Tea Party. It’s difficult.”

Jacobs doesn’t overtly express concern about her opponent but she certainly alludes to consternation with some of her tactics. Certainly, Bichotte’s attempt to knock her off the ballot completely by contesting her electoral petitions in court was problematic for Jacobs. Both women have accused the other of underhandedness during the case, which has since been settled. The court threw out some of Jacobs’s petitions but she still had enough to remain on the ballot.

Despite the strong challenge, Jacobs is confident that voters will keep her in Albany. “You don’t get elected again and again in a district with these kind of demographics unless you’re doing something right. We’ve built over the years an incredible rapport with the constituency,” she says. For those voters who may be new to the district or who may not be familiar with her, she wants them to know that “I have been in a lot of tough battles — and I don’t just mean electoral — I’ve been in a lot of places for what I believe are the right causes.”

If reelected she looks forward to continuing to work with the community. She see the work as “finding the best common denominator to bring people together.”

Check back tomorrow to hear from Bichotte, who I caught up with while she was on “train duty” meeting constituents outside the Cortelyou Road station.

Borough President Marty Markowitz
State Senator Eric Adams
Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association
CWA Local 1180
NARAL Pro-Choice New York
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Working Families Party
1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East
32BJ SEIU
New York State AFL-CIO
NYSUT
DC 37
United Federation of Teachers