Assemblyman Reacts to Election Results

The results from Election Day 2010 may be in, but Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr., I-Sag Harbor, said there is still uncertainty that could impact the East End. Despite the re-election of Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, R- Port Jefferson, who serves the East End, Thiele said it's still important to watch what's going to happen in the state Senate.

"Geographic balance is important and the City of New York has kind of controlled everything," Thiele said on Wednesday of issues such as the MTA payroll tax and school aid. "Suburban issues seem to get short shifted in State government because of the City of the New York.

State Senator Brian C. Foley, D- Blue Point,  lost re-election and Senator Craig M. Johnson, D-Nassau, is trails Republican challenger Jack Martins by just 415 votes.

Thiele said, "The Republicans won a couple of seats on Long Island, but they lost one in the Hudson Valley, they lost one in the City of New York, and right now, if all the results held, the Senate would be 31 and 31."

If the Republicans have the majority, Senator LaValle will be named the chairman of the higher education committee. He is currently the ranking minority member. Thiele said its an important part of his strategy to refocus Southampton College. "It does impact us locally."

Thiele, who watched the results come in from home last night, said he had some questions going into the election."The biggest question I had, and there were a few,  was the issue of having changed to being an independent and what would that mean and this being a volatile climate and anti-incumbent climate to run in."

When he joined  the State Assembly in 1995 to fill Assemblyman John Behan's unexpired term, he was a Republican. It was about a year ago that he switched parties after endorsing Democrat Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst and being only one of five Republicans in the Assembly to support a bill allowing homosexual couples to marry.

"Judging off the results, it didn't have much of an impact on my campaign or that of Senator LaValle's for that matter. The voters discerned who has worked hard for them and who hasn't."

He compared last night numbers to the 2006 gubernatorial election that he also ran for office in and the results surprised him. "In spite of all that, my results last night were much identical to what they were the last time." He said, "People didn't really care very much about party identification or party label and the results pretty much confirmed that last night."

"If you talk to anybody who is a sitting elected official this year, no one ever saw a political season like this one. There clearly was a level of anger out there and an unhappiness with the status quo."

Being an incumbent seemed to impact Congressman Tim Bishop's race more. The Southampton democrat has a lead of about 3,500 votes and has declared victory. "That's not going to be overturned on a recount. I think everybody expected it to be that close, where Altschuler spent somewhere between two and three million and campaigned virtually nonstop from the beginning of the year, I think that the result is a tribute to the kind of work that Bishop does."