The 4th Congressional District is located almost entirely within the town of Hempstead. Local geography is a powerful decoder for a battle that could determine control of the House of Representatives. After all, all politics is local.

This part of Nassau County reflects the dominant political currents of 2024. Will protecting reproductive freedom be a catalyst for suburban women and independents? Are immigration and border security hit hard by New York City’s struggle to accommodate the influx of migrants? Will Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket ensure high turnout due to the district’s significant concentration of minority and Asian voters? Are Orthodox and Conservative Jewish voters further consolidating behind Donald Trump amid the reverberations of October 7?

They are all factors. But ultimately, the race could be a barometer of voters’ tolerance of the culture of blatant nepotism in Hempstead, the heart of Nassau County’s Republican machine.

Republican incumbent Anthony P. D’Esposito, 42, of Island Park, is defending his seat in a rematch with attorney Laura A. Gillen, 55, of Rockville Center. The race is also a new chapter in Gillen’s anger against the patronage and crony contract machine that led to her surprise 2016 victory as city supervisor, the first Democrat to hold the job in more than a century.

STAIN OF NEPOTISM

Gillen, who at the time was campaigning against patronage and corruption, had good reasons for going after nepotism. Earlier that year, D’Esposito was appointed to the City Council while on unpaid leave as a detective with the NYPD. He soon got a job again, working full-time at the honeypot of patronage, the Nassau County Board of Elections, specializing in polling place security reviews. The $100,000 salary for that job was in addition to the $71,000 he collected as a councilman.

This is what the editors wrote at the time:

“This week in the Town of Hempstead, Councilman Anthony D’Esposito voted to give a raise to his mother, Carmen D’Esposito, a highway department secretary who will make $88,939 a year. That’s good work, and the D’Espositos get a lot of money .” of those, Anthony’s brother, Timothy D’Esposito, received a salary of $92,411 in 2016 as a captain with the city Department of Conservation and Waterways, Danielle D’Esposito, had a salary of $52,468 in 2016. And Timothy and Anthony’s father, Stephen D’Esposito, was chief of staff to Supervisor Anthony Santino and earned $169,000 a year.

The family members were all hired before D’Esposito joined the city council, making him the beneficiary of nepotism. After winning election to the House of Representatives in 2022, D’Esposito brought the Hempstead culture to the federal level and became a benefactor. As The New York Times revealed, D’Esposito placed the daughter of someone described as his longtime fiancée on the Congressional payroll as a staffer in his local district office, with a salary of $3,800 a month. Soon after, he hired another woman with whom he was dating part-time for $2,000 a month. Turns out she also had a full-time job with the city. Was the position in Congress a no-show job? If not, D’Esposito had both the daughter of the woman he was engaged to and the woman he was currently friends with working in his district office.

It was an echo of 2017 when new City Council member D’Esposito put that same fiancée and her son on the Village of East Rockaway payroll.

In his endorsement interview with the editors, D’Esposito said he had done nothing wrong: “There was absolutely no breach of ethics in the hiring.”

When asked if he would do it again, he replied: “If there are no ethical violations, there is absolutely no problem.”

That’s disqualifying.

Ironically, regardless of the outcome of the House race, D’Esposito is considered the likely Republican nominee for Hempstead supervisor next year if three-term Don Clavin opts for a judgeship instead. Asked about his intentions, D’Esposito said: “My focus is on the job I have.”

POLICY OBJECTIVES

Unlike some Republican candidates, D’Esposito rightly acknowledges that mass deportation of migrants is unrealistic; he believes the focus should be on removing those who break the law. And he was part of a caucus of moderate Republicans who pushed back on some of their conference’s more extreme ideas, such as cutting Amtrak funding and ending the sale of mifepristone abortion pills through pharmacies or by mail.

To address flooding, a problem in his coastal district, D’Esposito has a creative idea to have the federal government and the city work together to create special taxing districts for those who live on canals to pay for improved bulkheads.

Gillen, who has served one term as supervisor, is smart, tenacious and relentless in the pursuit of her goals. She wants the southern border closed, a faster determination of asylum claims and an overhaul of the immigration system that would encourage people to apply for legal status in their home countries to come here. She wants the federal government to reimburse New York for the costs of its migrant aid program.

Gillen argues that the federal government should be more involved in flood insurance programs and wants more funding for water quality improvements, especially in parts of the district with cancer clusters. She wants tougher negotiations with pharmaceutical companies to reduce the number of prescribed medicines. Gillen is said to be a staunch advocate for restoring the IRS deduction for state and local taxes.

We said two years ago that Gillen was the top choice in the 4th District and we stand by that recommendation.

The editors of Newsday support Gillen.