Kevin Parker

A legislative breakfast for a Brooklyn-based educational group, Shema Kolainu, on August 5 will be something of a who’s who of New York politicians.

Amusingly, attendees will hear both “remarks” from State Senator Kevin Parker, and “greetings” from one of the Democrats looking to unseat him, Simcha Felder.

The chairman of the event is possible mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis, whose company, Gristedes, is the sponsor.

(Honorary chair status is given to Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, which may help sell a few more tickets.)

The event is paying tribute to, among others, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the State Senate minority leader, Malcolm Smith, comptroller candidate and City Councilman David Weprin, and City Councilman Bill de Blasio, who is also a candidate for Brooklyn borough president.

Liberal billionaire George Soros and members of his family have contributed a little more than $1 million into state campaign coffers since 2000, with nearly all of it going to help Democrats in the State Senate.

Already this year, George, his son Robert, Robert’s wife, Melissa, and another son, Jonathan, contributed $199,500. George, Robert and Melissa each gave $25,000 to the New York State Democratic Party and gave the maximum allowable personal contributions - $9,500 - to Eric Schneiderman, David Valesky, Craig Johnson and Joe Addabbo.

(Two other members of the Soros family also contributed this year. Son Jonathan gave $9,500 to Democratic State Senate candidate Rick Dollinger and his wife, Jennifer, gave $1,000 to a pro-abortion rights lobbying PAC that donated to Johnson and Dollinger.  read more »

The Stonewall Democratic Club, one of the city's largest gay political clubs, held an endorsement meeting last night.

According to a club member, here is who the club is endorsing in a few key races:

-Challenger Kevin Powell over incumbent Representative Ed Towns

-Incumbent State Senator Marty Connor over insurgent Dan Squadron

-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver over his two challengers, Paul Newell and Luke Henry

-Incumbent State Senator Kevin Parker over challengers Kendall Stewart and Simcha Felder

-Manhattan Surrogate's Court candidate Nora Anderson

Kendall Stewart, who is running for State Senate in Brooklyn, is plowing ahead with the notion that he knows how to get money for local community groups, despite the trouble two of his staffers got into for allegedly misusing public money intended for local community groups.

"I want to thank you for all the years of support and your fair and unbiased approach to reporting the news," Stewart says in this "press invitation."

Stewart and fellow City Councilman Simcha Felder are running in a Democratic primary against incumbent Kevin Parker.

Kevin Parker, the state senator from Brooklyn facing two well-established primary challengers, just got the endorsement of the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 1500.

According to a statement from campaign spokesperson Ronnie Sykes, the union's decision wasn't a close one: “The union endorsed Senator Parker without conducting an interview. The decision was made based on the Senator’s strong history of support for working families.”

Running against Parker are term-limited City Council members Kendall Stewart and Simcha Felder, who has been on the wrong end of a preemptively exclusive screening process before.

The Democratic club home to Representative Yvette Clarke and her mother, Una Clarke, a former City Council member, will hear presentations tonight from State Senator Kevin Parker and one of the Democrats trying to unseat him, City Councilman Kendall Stewart.

Una Clarke said the presentations will be made to the executive committee of the club and are not open to the press. She also said the third Democrat in the race, City Councilman Simcha Felder, has not asked to speak to the club. Felder announced his candidacy for the seat only a few weeks ago, and Clarke says, "There is still a lot of unknown about him in the community.”

When asked which candidate she was leaning towards, Clarke replied, “I am not leaning -- I am standing straight until I get a level playing field and figure out what exactly is happening.”

Clarke said she thinks this primary shares some similarities with the 2006 Democratic primary in Brooklyn's 11th Congressional district-- the contest won by her daughter -- when there was considerable speculation that the district’s African-American voters would be divided among the three black candidates, giving the only white candidate a victory. Clarke thinks Felder poses a threat if he “gets a solid vote in his community, and the other votes are split in many ways.”

   read more »

“I’m hoping the election of Barack Obama will dispel the fear of a black planet,” said Democratic State Senator Kevin Parker of Brooklyn. “We don’t discuss it in polite circles, but some white voters fear that a black official would just help black communities.

“I’m hoping things have changed,” he said.  read more »

The State Senate contest that Simcha Felder just decided to jump into bears some resemblance, at least on the surface, to the 2006 primary in Brooklyn's 11th congressional district in which Councilman David Yassky, who is Jewish, jumped into a field that included multiple black candidates.  read more »

Councilman Simcha Felder just told a few reporters at City Hall that he has the support of both Michael Bloomberg and Assemblyman Dov Hikind in his new bid to unseat State Senator Kevin Parker.  read more »

Councilman Simcha Felder is not getting into the city comptroller race, but he will run for the Brooklyn State Senate seat currently held by fellow Democrat Kevin Parker, according to a source.  read more »

Here’s an invitation for a May 4 fund-raiser for City Councilman Kendall Stewart, who had two staffers indicted for stealing taxpayer money meant for a nonprofit in their Brooklyn district, .

Stewart had steered money to the group in the past; he was not named in the indictment.  read more »

I spoke briefly with City Councilman Kendall Stewart as he was leaving his office at 250 Broadway just now.  read more »

Assemblyman Dov Hikind said he’d like to see one of his fellow Democrats, state Senator Kevin Parker, replaced this November, according to two people who attended a meeting earlier this week where Hikind spoke.

Hikind was one of the guest speakers Wednesday night addressing Agudath Israel of America, a Jewish group based in downtown Manhattan that regularly hosts meetings with elected officials. According to an attendee there, Hikind referred to Parker as “a farce and a joke” and “he said he is going to unseat him this year.”

A second attendee, while less specific, confirmed Hikind’s unflattering remarks about his legislative colleague.

“I won’t pretend that the meeting didn’t take place or that he didn’t mention Parker’s name,“ said the attendee, who asked not to be named. “I wouldn’t say he spoke positively about him.”

According to this second source, Hikind said he was hopeful Parker would be defeated.

When reached on his cell phone earlier this afternoon, Hikind immediately hung up.  read more »

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who has grumbled about running for mayor, was introduced before his State of the Borough speech last night by Christine Quinn, a much-discussed--but undeclared--mayoral candidate.

What was that like?  read more »

Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, a Democrat from the Bronx, says that Eliot Spitzer has done some major damage to the Democrats' chances of taking over the state Senate.

"I know it’s probably going to be problematic next year, when it comes to making the effort to finally take over the state Senate," he told me. "I think probably over the last, probably, ten months, he’s given the Senate Republicans new life. I mean, they can now argue to their constituencies in upstate New York that you need to have Republican state Senators to maintain some level of balance and oversight so you don’t have Democrats running amok all across the state when you have a Democratic Assembly, a Democratic state Senate and a Democratic governor."

Here's City Councilman Kendall Stewart of Brooklyn discussing his plan to challenge State Senator Kevin Parker for his seat in next year’s election.

Stewart hasn’t created a committee for his state Senate run just yet. But he does have $1,188 in an account set up to bid for a position on the Democratic Party’s state committee. (That committee is also carrying $3,525 in debt.)

Kevin Parker, according to this filing, has $17,932.42 on hand in his campaign account.

Before winning a Democratic primary for a judicial post last week, Noach Dear ran for state Senator in Brooklyn in 2002, 2004 and 2006. He lost each time to Kevin Parker, who had this to say about Dear's qualifications as a public servant:

"I don’t think he’s fit, frankly, to serve anywhere. And I would rather had him lose his election and run against me every year and let me beat him every year, than have him serve this borough and this state in any capacity."

That’s the answer to the question (question to the answer?) of “voted to take away $2.7M away from the Metropolitan Jewish Geriatric Center.”

It’s part of a new web site launched by the Republicans in the state Senate as part of a renewed offensive against Eliot Spitzer and the Democrats, who are two seats away from taking control of that chamber.

More about the effort here.

The race to fill the 40th City Council seat in Brooklyn is starting to look a little bit like the Congressional race that just concluded in that area, in which much of the dialogue centered on whether "a white individual" could or should represent a majority-minority district.

In the Council race, there are eight African-American and Caribbean-American candidates, and one white Jewish candidate.

Here's an audio clip of the exchange at a candidate forum last night between moderator Tony Best, the editor of CaribNews, and candidate Harry Schiffman.

Tony Best:

"In recent elections, in the 11th congressional district, in the state Senate district now held by Senator Kevin Parker, and now in the 40th, in these districts which were carved out specifically to ensure black representation, we have seen Jewish candidates running. Could you, as a member of the Jewish faith, could you explain what is happening here, particularly in your case. Why are you running?"

Gary Schiffman:

"I've got a master's degree in social work; I'm a community organizer and planner. And in 30 years of working in neighborhoods throughout New York City, from Coney Island to Williamsburg, from Far Rockaway to Jackson Heights, I've worked with immigrant groups from every background, every nationality, whether they're African American, Caribbean-American or Asian. Those are the skills that I've done over the last 30 years. And I've brought people together to solve their issues."

I tried following up on that theme in a follow-up with a different candidate, Zenobia McNally.

Azi:

"Sort of to follow up on Mr. Best's question to Harry Schiffman, do you believe only a black resident of the 40th district can represent the entire district? And do you believe a particular candidate has to be of a particular ethnicity to the district?"

Here's part of her answer:

"No, I don't believe that it's only a person, black person or Caribbean person to represent the district. However, too many times and often times in the United States we've been under-represented within. So when a seat is carved out to help bring representation within City Hall, there should be people who fill that seat. And it's because of that reason, and I will say that I am a candidate who is not running against any ethnic or any religious lines at all.

My candidacy and my campaign is open to everyone and I welcome everyone into the race. And that's why my party is called Neighbors Unite, okay? But I will say also, because of under-representation, and this is seen by the endorsements that I've gotten from groups who find they themselves too, are under-represented, I do think that it should reside with someone who is going to look at the best interest of everyone in the community.

And if the Caribbean base is stronger, if the African-American base is stronger, it should more or else represent the people who are there. So, I thank you for your question and so therefore I will say to you that even though it's -- it would be undemocratic to say that not everyone should run. But in this case, since we do have under-representation, it should be someone who can represent the majority of the people in the district.

Thank you."

Brian Lehrer is scheduled to have all the candidates on his radio show on Monday. I'm sort of resigned to the fact that this may come up again.

-- Azi Paybarah

Too bad Kevin Parker already endorsed. This is from Virginia's interview with Gabe Pressman, to air Sunday:

PRESSMAN: Do you consider yourself a fighter?

FIELDS: Oh, absolutely. I've always been a fighter. I've always had tofight on many different levels. And I'm a good fighter; I'm a tough fighter.And...

PRESSMAN: Physically or...

FIELDS: I've had to fight physically.

PRESSMAN: ...figuratively?

FIELDS: I've had to fight physically...

PRESSMAN: Really?

FIELDS: ...sometimes, much younger, you know, as a kid. I don't fight now. But...

PRESSMAN: What sort of fights did you have as a kid?  read more »

FIELDS: Well, it was usually about turf kinds of things, you know, whose side of the street did this group belong to, and you don't cross this side. Sometimes about boys, too, you know.