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PARTY LINE
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sica Thurston. “If he can go into these spaces and
fi nd common ground and bring in these ideas that
would be great.”
The recent Gay City News reports followed a
2017 sitdown between the paper and the pol during
his failed campaign to succeed former Council
Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D–Manhattan),
during which Williams emphatically stated his
support for marriage equality after coming under
fi re for failing to publicly support the issue during
an earlier bid for the same role.
But the steadfast support for Williams shown
by some local progressive Democrats was not
enough to earn an endorsement from leaders of
another political club known for its LGBTQ advocacy,
the Lambda Independent Democrats of
Brooklyn, which recently backed Mark-Viverito’s
Public Advocate bid .
Williams’s campaign did not respond to requests
for comment by press time.
• • •
He’s going for the throne.
The former chairman of the Brooklyn Conservative
Party is allegedly eyeing a new gig as
the party’s statewide chairman.
Dyker Heights resident Jerry Kassar, the
New York State Conservative Party’s current
vice chairman, is reportedly considering a move
to lead the group after the sudden exit of its former
chairman , Bay Ridgite Mike Long, who recently
stepped down after three decades, Bklyner
reported .
Kassar previously served as chief-of-staff for
former state Sen. Marty Golden (R–Bay Ridge),
and worked in the Assembly. He now writes a column
for the Brooklyn Reporter called “Common
Sense.”
The outgoing chairman in his resignation letter
said the time is ripe for a new leader to take
over the statewide Conservative Party, which
is headquartered in Bay Ridge, following his 30
years at its helm.
• • •
Albany’s Dems are keeping busy!
Democratic pols have passed bills at a breakneck
speed since reclaiming the majority in the
state Legislature earlier this year, including laws
that crack down on gun control, promote voting
reforms, extend the statute of limitations for sex
crimes, ban gay-conversion therapy for minors,
and codify reproductive rights.
And Brooklyn Dems championed much of that
legislation, pushing ahead with the bills that were
previously stymied for years by Republicans while
they held a majority in the Legislature.
Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon (D–Carroll
Gardens) sponsored the Red Flag Bill, which allows
courts to prohibit a person from buying guns
if they are deemed likely to be a threat to themselves
or others, which Gov. Cuomo signed into
law on Jan. 29.
She also sponsored legislation that brings
transparency to the often hard-to-track political
donations of limited liability companies by requiring
them to fi le political expenditures with
the state’s Board of Elections, and declare the
identities of all their direct and indirect owners
and their ownership stakes, which Gov. Cuomo
approved on Jan. 24.
And that same day, the governor signed off on a
package of voting-reform bills — which will make
casting a ballot easier by allowing voter preregistration,
and registration transfer and enrollment
for new Empire State residents — after freshman
state Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D–Crown Heights) and
his blue-party colleagues introduced them in the
state’s upper house.