Thomas R. Suozzi

Thomas R. Suozzi

: Photo from Wikipedia / Author of Photo: US House Office of Photography

Overview

* Former partner in Harold Ickes’ New York law firm, Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein
* Currently serving as Nassau County Executive in Long Island, New York
* Launched “Fix Albany” campaign in April 2004, ostensibly to clean up corruption and legislative “gridlock” in New York State


Thomas R. Suozzi was born on August 31, 1962 in Glen Cove, New York. His father, Joseph, was an Italian immigrant who went to law school, worked his way up to a seat on the appellate bench, and became a partner in the influential Long Island law firm Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein. Thomas followed in his father’s footsteps.

While attending Fordham University law school, Thomas Suozzi met and befriended New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who became his mentor. Cuomo hired the young Suozzi to run his reelection campaign in 1990.

Suozzi, a Democrat, began his own political career in 1993, when he ran successfully for mayor of his hometown, Glen Cove. His father Joseph and his uncle Vincent had both held the post of Glen Cove mayor before him.

After four terms as mayor of Glen Cove, Thomas Suozzi in 2001 ran for Nassau County Executive, the county with the highest concentration of registered Republicans in New York State. No Democrat had won that position in thirty years, and only one Democrat had won it in the county’s entire history. Yet Suozzi took Nassau County by an astonishing 2-to-1 margin.

In 2004, Suozzi made headlines throughout New York State with his so-called “Fix Albany” campaign. With Democrat power waning in Washington, many on the left had despaired of imposing their radical agenda from the top down. They sought instead to radicalize America from the bottom up, seizing power city by city, county by county, and state by state. Journalist Jim Holt enunciated this strategy in The New York Times Magazine of November 11, 2004, calling on fellow leftists to implement social change under the cover of states’ rights. “The more conservatives succeed in reducing the size and scope of the federal government, the more fiscal freedom the blue states will have to pursue their own idea of a just society,” wrote Holt.

George Soros and his Shadow Party were keen proponents of this “bottom-up” strategy. They selected New York State as a laboratory for their experiment. “New York is a state that has more Democrats than Republicans,” Soros spokesman Michael Vachon explained to The New York Sun. “If we can’t gain a foothold here, how can we expect to win on the national level?”

Through his “Fix Albany” campaign — first unveiled in the 2004 election cycle — Suozzi emerged as a stealth promoter of George Soros’ plan to transform New York State into a “foothold” for the Shadow Party, and prepared himself as a potential gubernatorial candidate.

Presenting himself as a moderate or even conservative Democrat, Suozzi promoted a radical platform that included “sharing” wealth through “regional”  distribution of tax revenues; enacting Living Wage laws written by the radical cult ACORN; stripping power from towns, villages and other local jurisdictions; and eliminating “spatial racism” through “inclusionary zoning” laws, the redrawing of school districts, and the massive relocation of minority populations into white-majority areas.

Suozzi championed what he called the “New Suburbia” — a model of “smart growth” and “sustainable development,” in which trained technocrats could regulate suburban “sprawl.”

“Smart growth” is a form of rationing. It entails tightly restricting zoning and building permits — rendering such permits artificially scarce and expensive. It is a well-known principle of economics that rationing gives rise to black markets. “Smart growth” is a formula for corruption, providing a wealth of opportunities for cronyism, patronage, bribes and kickbacks. Labor rackets and other forms of organized crime thrive under such systems — a fact which Thomas Suozzi surely did not overlook, given his close association with the law firm of Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein.

On the pretext of fostering “smart growth,” Suozzi sought to strip local municipalities of their power — a move that met fierce resistance from Long Island towns and villages that, in some cases, had managed their own affairs for more than 300 years. Land-use planners imbued with the ideology of “smart growth” refer to such independent communities as “little boxes.” Such planners seek, on principle, to “break down the walls” of “little boxes,” incorporating them into “big boxes” managed by technocrats.

Yet, Long Island’s townships and incorporated villages were remarkably free of “suburban sprawl.” An ancient two-lane highway provided the only access to the South Fork’s world-class beaches and resorts. South Fork natives had kept it that way on purpose. They needed no assistance from Suozzi and his “smart growth” planners to control “sprawl,” but were experts at preserving the beauty and serenity of their communities.

Suozzi endorsed the idea that Long Island was infected with “spatial racism” — that is, racial segregation that is institutionally preserved through land-use policies. The only way to end “spatial racism,” say land-use experts, is to break up the “little boxes.” Suozzi’s crusade against “spatial racism” was likely related to his push for “smart growth.” Accusing Long Island’s tight-knit municipalities of “racism” would provide Suozzi with the perfect excuse to strip those communities of their centuries-old independence and to promote state control of their land.

In June 2001, the Long Island Community Foundation hired leftwing activist Elaine V. Gross to launch the ERASE Racism initiative — a program aimed at eradicating “institutional racism” on Long Island. Gross’s team released a study in June 2002 alleging that Long Island was the most racially segregated suburb in the USA. According to the report, 74 percent of Long Island blacks would have to move into white areas in order to achieve a racially equitable distribution — a mass exodus of truly biblical proportions, which the study appeared to advocate.

Other proposed solutions to Long Island “racism” included such concepts as “inclusionary zoning,” “coordinated economic development,” re-drawing school districts so that black and white children would attend school in each others’ neighborhoods, and dispatching undercover “testers” to trap realtors in sting operations designed to catch them in the act of “steering” minorities away from renting or buying properties in white neighborhoods.

ERASE Racism consultant David Rusk also recommended what he called “regional tax-based sharing so that some of the wealthier communities put more money into a pot that gets shared out to some of the poorer communities.” ERASE Racism unveiled its program at a June 5, 2002 conference in Islandia, New York. Thomas Suozzi spoke there, warmly endorsing the ERASE Racism initiative and using the occasion to promote his vision of “big box”  regional  government for Long Island.

Suozzi announced in April 2004 that he was starting a political action committee called FixAlbany.com that would fund challengers to incumbents in the New York State legislature — be they Democrat or Republican — who, in Suozzi’s judgment, were contributing to legislative gridlock.

As if to punctuate Suozzi’s point, the Soros-funded Brennan Center at New York University released a study in July 2004 called The New York State Legislative Process: An Evaluation and Blueprint for Reform. The so-called “Brennan Report” diagnosed New York State government as the most “dysfunctional” in the nation, providing a convenient academic rationale for efforts by Suozzi, Soros, and the Working Families Party to stack the state legislature with stealth radicals posing as “reform” candidates.

Many of the Brennan Center study’s criticisms seemed valid, yet a pervasive pattern in the case studies it presented hinted that the Center’s chief objection to the New York State legislature was that it was too slow to embrace radical legislation that would break the state budget, raise taxes and drive business from the state.

From the moment the Brennan Center issued its study, reporters throughout New York State rushed to interrogate candidates for state office, seeking their opinions on the proposed “reforms.” The New York Times announced that it would withhold its endorsement from any candidate who did not agree to the full range of proposals stipulated in the Brennan Report.

The stage was set for Suozzi’s insurrection.

In 2004, all 212 members of the New York State legislature ran for reelection. Suozzi focused his efforts on a small group of close races. His slate of “reform” candidates coincided closely with those funded by the Soros family and endorsed by the Working Families Party, in several instances.

Suozzi declared victory for his “throw the bums out” movement, despite the fact that only two of the targeted incumbents lost their seats. “We said we would take out one assembly and one state senator and we did,” Suozzi told Newsday. “Even guys who won are now talking about reform.”

Suozzi chose to focus his “Fix Albany” campaign on the alleged failure of New York legislators to deal with burgeoning Medicaid costs. “With less than 7 percent of the nation’s population, New York spends 12 percent of the country’s Medicaid dollars,” warned Suozzi’s FixAlbany.com website. He proposed forcing the state to pay a larger portion of Medicaid costs, which at the time were being split between state and county governments.

Suozzi chose a curious issue on which to peg his crusade. Already the sick and elderly could not obtain medical benefits in New York without first running a punishing gauntlet of bureaucratic harassment. If the state were to be forced to pay for a larger share of Medicaid costs, benefits would become even harder to obtain. Suozzi’s proposal was guaranteed to create a health care crisis.

Apparently, the Nassau County Executive was spearheading a new application of the co-called “crisis strategy” or “Cloward-Piven Strategy.” This tried-and-true maneuver of the left calls for deliberately provoking a crisis in order to foster panic, despair and confusion — emotions conducive to radical political change.

If Suozzi were to succeed in producing a health care crisis in New York, Senator Hillary Clinton would be its chief beneficiary. She would have been well positioned to come riding to the rescue, offering a “solution” in the form of massive federal intervention.  Mrs. Clinton had strong ties to the political machine that had spawned Suozzi — in particular, to the Long Island law firm of Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, where Suozzi’s father Joseph was one of the named partners. Moreover, Meyer Suozzi partner Harold Ickes ran Mrs. Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, served as deputy chief of staff in the Bill Clinton White House, and subsequently ran the Shadow Party for George Soros. Also, former Meyer Suozzi managing partner William Cunningham III was Hillary Clinton’s campaign treasurer in the 2000 Senate race.

On September 22, 2021, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint against Suozzi for having failed to disclose approximately 300 stock transactions whose combined value may have been as much as $11 million. In a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics, CLC said:

“Campaign Legal Center (‘CLC’) respectfully requests that the Office of Congressional Ethics (‘OCE’) investigate Rep. Thomas Suozzi for a possible violation of the STOCK Act and House rules. From 2017 to 2020, Rep. Suozzi made approximately 300 stock trades with a total value ranging from approximately $3.2 million to $11 million.  Rep. Suozzi did not file any periodic transaction reports (‘PTRs’), which are required for each transaction pursuant to the STOCK Act and House rules. An OCE investigation is necessary to determine whether his failure to file was knowing and willful. […]

“The STOCK Act amended the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (‘EIGA’) to require members of Congress to report their individual stock transactions no ‘later than 30 days after receiving notification of any transaction required to be reported under section 102(a)(5)(B), but in no case later than 45 days after such transaction.’  […]

“For four years, Rep. Suozzi traded stocks frequently, but did not file any PTRs as required. In 2017, he had approximately 64 transactions, valued between $456,064 and $1,865,000. In 2018, there were approximately 31 transactions, valued between $528,031 and $1,445,000. In 2019, Rep. Suozzi made approximately 104 stock trades with a total value ranging from $1.1 million to $3.8 million. In 2020, he made approximately 104 trades with a total value ranging from $1.1 million to $4.0 million. Rep. Suozzi acknowledged that these trades are reportable by including them in his yearend financial disclosure statements, but did he not file any PTRs. […]

“Two factors suggest that Rep. Suozzi was in fact aware of the requirement prior to the filing of his PTRs and may have knowingly avoided disclosing his stock trades at the time they were made.

“First, Rep. Suozzi was required to attend mandatory ethics training for new members of Congress in 2017. This training includes discussion of financial disclosures and the STOCK Act. Members of Congress are required to complete the ethics training within 60 days of their start date, meaning Rep. Suozzi would have been required to complete the training no later than March 4, 2017. The Committee on Ethics does not grant extensions for completing ethics training. As a result, Rep. Suozzi should have been aware of the requirement as early as 2017.

“Second, even if Rep. Suozzi asserts that he did not know of the PTR requirements when he entered Congress, despite having undergone contemporaneous training that explained the requirements, he should have known about the disclosure requirements due to public attention on congressional stock trades. In March 2020, high profile insider trading allegations engulfed several senators and became widely publicized. These allegations of STOCK Act violations were all based on information disclosed in PTRs. Also in 2020, another scandal involving STOCK Act violations came to light: Rep. Donna Shalala failed to file PTRs for numerous transactions. Considering that the requirement for PTRs in Congress was headline news throughout 2020, and that Rep. Suozzi had already filed numerous annual
disclosures with the House, it seems unlikely that he was unaware of the disclosure requirements at the time of the transactions.

“For these reasons, Rep. Suozzi cannot excuse his failure to report with a claim that it he was unfamiliar with the financial disclosure requirements.  An OCE preliminary review can gather information to determine whether Rep. Suozzi knowingly violated the STOCK Act.”

An Office of Congressional Ethics complaint filed on April 4, 2022 showed that Suozzi had violated federal law by failing to disclose at least 31 stock transactions he had made between September 2017 and June 2021 — transactions worth a combined total of more than $885,000. The congressman’s trades “involved 9 companies that are either clearly regulated or affected by Congressional action, such as Apple, Altria Group, Boeing, BlackRock, Caterpillar, Citigroup, Cisco Systems, General Electric, IBM, and Verizon Communications,” the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) wrote in a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics. “Suozzi not only failed to make timely and accurate disclosures, but his delay was so egregiously extreme it was impossible for the public to monitor those trades.”

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