Mike Groll/AP Photo
New York state Senator David Carlucci, seen here in May 2013, in Albany, New York
When Nita Lowey, the 16-term congresswoman from New York, announced in early October she’d be retiring after 2020, the decision was met with mild surprise. At 82, Lowey, the first woman ever to chair the powerful House Appropriations Committee, has held her seat comfortably for decades. Given her senior status, her high-ranking position within the chamber, and her proximity to Nancy Pelosi, Lowey is one of the most influential Democrats in the House.
Yet, in the wake of a 2018 midterm cycle that saw New York’s politics move meaningfully to the left at both the local and national level, there emerged the possibility that Lowey might be at risk of falling victim to a shifting political landscape. For the first time in three decades, Lowey was facing a progressive primary challenger of her own: Mondaire Jones, a 32-year-old lawyer who set up his campaign distinctly to Lowey’s left, advocating for a Green New Deal, among other issues. Like many other challengers in New York, Jones had positioned himself for a replay of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset victory last year.
There was much speculation that Lowey’s resignation would open the door for a high-profile challenger. Chelsea Clinton, for one, had been floated as a possible candidate for NY-17, which encompasses Westchester and Rockland Counties, the suburbs north of New York City. But Clinton declined to enter the race. Instead, into the fray has jumped David Carlucci, a founder and foremost member of the loathed Independent Democratic Conference, who built his political reputation by spending the better part of the decade working to keep the GOP in control of the New York State Senate, despite a Democratic majority. Carlucci’s record as a Democratic Party turncoat is enough to make Joe Lieberman blush.
In 2010, Carlucci, a registered Democrat, secured his first term in a New York Senate seat centered around Rockland County. He promptly went to work thwarting Democratic control of the chamber, in open contempt of party leadership and the state’s voters. During Carlucci’s very first week in office in January 2011, he and three other Democratic senators announced that they would be abandoning the Senate Democratic Conference and forming their own group, the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC). At that point, Republicans had control of the state Senate, but the IDC boosted their numbers and their legislative mandate.
In 2012, despite gerrymandered electoral maps that weighted the scales in favor of Republicans, Democrats won 33 of the 63 seats in the Senate. Even with conservative Democrat Simcha Felder caucusing with the GOP, New York Democrats reasonably expected to enjoy a 32-31 majority in the chamber, which represented a major development in the state’s shifting politics. That majority would have given them control for only the third time since World War II.
However, thanks to the brinkmanship of Carlucci and the rest of the IDC, which had by 2012 swelled to five members, a deal was brokered to keep the minority GOP in control. The IDC firmed up a power-sharing accord with the state’s Republicans, allowing them to block the Democratic legislative agenda at every turn. And as thanks for providing political support to shore up Republicans’ minority rule, IDC members like Carlucci got committee chairmanships and vice chairmanships, which came with not-insignificant financial perks like increased salaries.
The IDC held on for seven years, thwarting Democratic governance in Albany and stirring a civil war within the party. They helped stymie bills on everything from gun control to voting rights. It took until 2018 to dispatch Carlucci and Company’s insurgency, which was finally vanquished last September, when six of the eight IDC senators went down to defeat in Democratic primaries (earlier that year, in April, Governor Cuomo announced a reconciliation plan to effectively disband the IDC and re-incorporate its members into the Democratic Party).
By the time Carlucci rejoined the Democratic caucus, his vote was no longer needed to pass any of the issue items on the agenda. Carlucci managed to hang on to his seat in September, besting his primary challenger Julie Goldberg by 8 percent, though Goldberg joined the race late, without political connections, and Carlucci out-fundraised her by a ratio of 24 to 1. Perhaps chastened, or just aware of the changing political climate, Carlucci played nice with Democrats in the most recent session, helping to pass numerous bills, including a voter pre-registration program for 16- and 17-year-olds.
New York’s 17th Congressional District is extremely safe Democratic turf: In 2016, it went 59-38 for Hillary Clinton. When considering Democrats’ improved lot in suburban districts, and Ocasio-Cortez’s victory in nearby NY-14, it’s exactly the sort of district that would be ripe for a progressive takeover. Mondaire Jones, who raised $218,000 in donations in the last fundraising quarter, even before the announcement of Lowey’s impending retirement, comfortably fits that description.
Jones, who would be the first openly gay black member of Congress, has pledged not to accept PAC money, and has signed the “no fossil fuel money” pledge, while stumping for student debt forgiveness and Green New Deal legislation. He’s also, it should be noted, advocating for a reinstitution of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction repealed in the Trump tax plan. In effect, the SALT deduction saves homeowners and rich people a lot of money, though in a heavily suburban district in a high-tax state, advocating for its reinstatement is probably a political fact of life.
“For 8 years, [Carlucci] helped to block a woman’s right to choose, civil rights for the LGBTQ community, public education funding, criminal justice reform, and so much more that could have improved the lives of millions of New Yorkers,” Jones said in a statement. “As someone who is gay, black, and a graduate of East Ramapo public schools, Senator Carlucci’s betrayal of New Yorkers and the Democratic Party is personal for me.”
Activist groups are similarly seething about Carlucci’s ingress. They’ve identified recent mailers, circulated by the Carlucci campaign, in which he takes credit for a number of bills he worked to stymie for the bulk of his time in the New York Senate. Carlucci has predictably downplayed his role in the IDC.
While it remains to be seen whether Carlucci can convincingly launder his own reputation in the eyes of voters, the possibility of a Trump-friendly Democrat swooping in to secure a seat in a deep-blue district would be deeply troubling as Democrats look to grow their advantage in the House to help advance the policy goals of a possible Democratic president. “David Carlucci spent years propping up Republicans in the state Senate, allowing the GOP to block every major progressive priority even though a majority of New Yorkers support Democrats,” David Nir, political director of Daily Kos told me; the site raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for candidates. “The last thing we need in Congress is someone who puts his personal thirst for power ahead of his constituents’ needs.”
