The Voting Rights and Democracy Project, with assistance from the Fordham Law Advocates for Voter Rights (FLAVR), organized a discussion with U.S. Representative and Fordham Law alumnus Tom Suozzi ’89 who led a post-mortem on the U.S. midterm elections.
Suozzi is the U.S. representative for New York’s 3rd District, the former county executive of Nassau County, and the former mayor of Glen Cove, New York. Suozzi was also a participant in this election cycle, having ran an ultimately unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York.
At the time of the event on November 9, a day after the election, ballot counts were still rolling in, with mixed outcomes for both parties. Notably, the election season also included numerous candidates who denied the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“This was a very important election,” said Voting Rights and Democracy Project Director Jerry Goldfeder. “Everyone appreciates the fact that our constitutional democracy is a bit fragile at this point, and the voters seem to have put up a stop sign yesterday and said, ‘Not so fast, you election deniers.’”
Nonetheless, said Goldfeder, approximately 200 election deniers were still elected to office. “They threaten the very fabric of our way of life, our electoral system,” he said.
Suozzi also noted several significant Democratic victories. “[Democrats] ended up doing much better throughout the country than expected,” he said. “They held their own because of the issues they campaigned on, the accomplishments of the administration, the turnout of the races, and the strength of the individual candidates.”
Suozzi did express concern however, about growing divisions in the country, made worse by gerrymandered districts that allow elected officials to pander to their base rather than being responsive to the needs of their constituents, as well as the spread of misinformation on social media.
Still, he remained hopeful about the future, and spoke to the audience of students in attendance about their role in upholding the rule of law.
“My belief is that we’re going to ultimately succeed in preserving our democracy, and we’re going to ultimately succeed in beating back the forces trying to stop us,” said Suozzi. “And smart people like yourselves are going to help us figure out how to get the public reengaged again.”
