Permit me to expand upon the letter in the Sept. 29 issue from Ms. Renee Haber, in support of Laura Curran in the pending election for Nassau County executive.
Beginning in late 2015, I was part of a small group of then state Sen. Martins’s constituents who spoke with him and his Chief of Staff several times – in person in his office as well as by conference call – about the harmful effect on the electoral process from anonymous “big money,” urging him to sign a letter than being circulated by state Sen. Boyle, a Long Island Republican, advocating a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sen. Martins acknowledged that he considered fund raising the most unpleasant part of running for office and seemed not unsympathetic to the general concept but, over the weeks-long course of the discussions, presented various reasons why he could not sign the letter.
In what proved to be the final contact in March 2016, he explained that he was reluctant to sign letters or petitions because they could turn out later to contain language, or to imply commitments, with which he could not agree.
We then proposed that, if he could not sign the letter, at least he could make known his objections to Citizens United, perhaps by submitting a Letter to the Editor of The New York Times or Newsday, or at least by stating them clearly in campaign appearances and other speeches in the course of the next election.
Mr. Martins seemed to agree with that suggestion, but weeks went by without any sign of such a statement.
I consequently wrote a letter to Newsday (to my regret, it was not published) protesting his lack of follow-through; out of courtesy, I sent a copy to his chief of staff.
That elicited an angry phone call from him asserting that our group had “gotten what we wanted” with Mr. Martins’s ostensible agreement.
Notwithstanding that protest, though, it became clear to all of us who had made the effort to persuade him that, as Ms. Haber pointed out, Mr. Martins was “a regular part of traditional pay-to-play politics” that depend on large donors to finance their campaigns and elect them to or keep them in office.
It is my firm conviction that all Nassau County voters who share the widespread dismay over the corruption of our democracy by the unlimited, unidentified campaign contributions enabled by Citizens United should turn out at the polls on Nov. 7 to cast their votes against Jack Martins and big money, and for Laura Curran for county executive.
Robert I. Adler
Port Washington
