Spin Cycle

From his unique perch as Long Island’s lone Republican congressman, Rep. Peter King sees a difference between the trouble his party faces in the region and the electoral peril it confronts across America.

“I think they’re two separate \[problems\] that came together at the same time,” King said yesterday. “There were local issues, going back to the late 1990s, in Nassau County with its budget problems. And Suffolk has had a disunited Republican party. Even just taking the congressional seats on Long Island, we didn’t lose any of them due to national issues,” he said, as some local losses came in otherwise flush GOP years.

King, a backer of President George W. Bush and the military effort in Iraq, acknowledged that the war has hurt the administration’s popularity, given “harsh” media coverage, and that gas prices haven’t helped.

Whatever the reasons, numbers published this week from 26 of the 29 states where voters register by party show GOP enrollment declining since 2005. Voter affiliation with Democrats or with no political party has risen overall. In Iowa and Nevada, Democratic registration surpassed Republican.

In Nassau, some Democrats follow the steady closing of the enrollment gap between their party and the once-mighty GOP with the zest of New Year’s Eve revelers counting down the seconds to midnight. Ten years ago, Republicans held an enrollment edge of 100,000. In November, that was down to about 22,000. This week the margin stands at 13,000 and shrinking, said Nassau Democratic election commissioner Bill Biamonte.

“Demographics” is often the explanation — more immigrants, more racial minorities, more young people, who often enroll as Democrats or unaffiliated, the waning of a previous generation. “For one,” Biamonte explains, “young people coming of age are simply not registering en masse as Republicans, in contrast to their parents. And second, the diverse migration of people from outside Nassau feel that the Democratic Party is more about economic empowerment and plurality as they move into a suburban lifestyle.”

But sociology explains only so much.

Dan Janison

Last month, a spokeswoman for Babylon Supervisor Steven Bellone declined to say if the town is doing business with Winters Brothers Waste Systems Inc., a refuse-hauling company that three customers charged in court with violating anti-trust laws.

But while the answer was unavailable inside town hall, at least it was available behind town hall. There, large decals slapped onto the sides of two large green garbage containers proclaimed: WINTERS BROS Under Contract with TOWN of BABYLON, SUFFOLK CO., NY.

In a lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, three Suffolk business owners said Winters Brothers engaged in a “relentless campaign to restrain and coerce” customers from switching to competitors they said were offering lower prices.

Chau Lam

Nearly 400 from both major and minor parties showed up last week for a record-breaking Independence Party fundraiser that brought in a record $78,000.

The event, held at Venetian Shores catering complex in Babylon, exceeded the $60,000 raised by the minor party last year. Chairman Frank MacKay credited for the overflow turnout both new party vice chairmen -- Anthony Manetta and former Smithtown Conservative chairman Jimmy Tsunis, who's also finance director of the Independence Party of America.

Rick Brand

Below is ABC's Diana Williams interviewing MacKay last year:

Babylon Democrats are leaving the $79,000-a-year town clerk post, vacated by Janice Tinsley Colbert, open for at least the next few weeks.

Robert Stricoff, town Democratic chairman, said he expects to conduct a screening in the next three weeks and that the town board will make an appointment around May 1. The appointed clerk will have to run for election in a special election in November.

Democratic town board member Carol Quirk has expressed interest in the job, said Stricoff, but if the board were to name her, it would create the prospect for two special elections in November. In the meantime, Ronnise Miller, who had been chief deputy clerk, is doing the job in the interim. Stricoff said Miller, who recently became a lawyer, has not put her name in for the post.

Rick Brand