Last original legislator still standing in Nassau


                                                    

Nassau Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello from county website


Word has gone out in political circles that longtime Republican legislator Vincent Muscarella of West Hempstead will be cross endorsed by Republican and Democratic parties this November for district court judge in Hempstead.

That will leave Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park) as the last still-serving member of the original Nassau Legislature, which took office in Jan. 1996 -- assuming he doesn't also nab a judicital cross-endorsement.

The 19-member legislature took the place of the old Nassau County Board of Supervisors, which was ruled unconstitutional because its weighted voting system (giving Hempstead Town more clout than any of the other Nassau towns and cities) violated the priniciple of one person-one vote.

Muscarella and Nicolello, both attorneys, were members of the first Republican majority that controlled the legislature until 2000 when Democrats took the majority. Control has shifted between parties over the years.


The late Judy Jacobs of Woodbury was the last still-serving Democratic member of the original legislator until she died in 2016. 


 

Leg.Vincent Muscarella

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