I live in New York State’s District 17, and our state senator happens to be Simcha Felder. No doubt many of you in the state know Felder because he’s an almost infamous character in New York State politics, but for those of you who don’t know him, I’ll try to offer a brief explanation.
While New York State should be a reliably Democratic state, our politics are actually fairly conservative, because the Republicans essentially have control of the state government. The reason they have control of state politics has to do with a few issues. First, it has to do with the IDC, who were a group of “turncoat” Democrats who don’t caucus with the Democrats, essentially empowering the Republicans. Second, Andrew Cuomo, our Democratic Governor, quite likes having a Republican controlled state senate, because it allows him to talk a somewhat “liberal” game, but he never has to legislate in that way, because the legislature is conservative. So, he can appeal to his constituents with liberal talk, but he never runs the risk of actually having to legislate progressively, which might alienate him from his very wealthy donor base. And last, there is Simcha Felder, our state senator. Felder runs as a Democrat, but he’s essentially a Republican. But he typically runs unopposed in the Democratic primary, because no one wants to waste their time challenging him, because it’s presumed he has a lock on the district. Our district is heavily gerrymandered, creating a district with a very large Orthodox Jewish population, and Felder himself is Orthodox. But outside of this issue of identity, he’s very effective at representing the interests of the Orthodox community. So, it’s long been thought that it would be a waste of time to challenge him, because the district is his. And along with the IDC, Felder helps make the New York State Senate a Republican legislature.
That’s the backstory. And then, as happened in many places in this country, the election of Trump was an awakening. In my neighborhood, a group of people began organizing with the intention of challenging Felder by either putting pressure on him to legislate in a progressive way, or else, by running a primary challenger against him.
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