NYAPRS Note: NYAPRS extends our congratulations and warm wishes to the NYS Senate’s new Majority Leader, Long Island Senator John Flanagan. Here’re some details about the Senator.
Who is NYS Sen. John Flanagan, Next Republican Majority Leader?
By Michelle Breidenbach Syracuse Post-Standard May 11, 2015
R-East Northport, has been elected to serve as the new Republican leader of the New York State Senate after the recent arrest of Leader Dean Skelos on corruption charges.
Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, will return to his job as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee – a high position, but not the leadership post many wanted for Upstate New York.
So who is Sen. Flanagan?
Like Skelos, Flanagan, 54, hails from Long Island. He stepped into his father’s shoes in the New York State Legislature.
The late John Flanagan Sr. served in the New York State Assembly from 1972 to 1986.
The late Assemblyman Flanagan died at age 50 while jogging with the younger Flanagan and wife Barbara at the local junior high track. Flanagan ran for his father’s seat.
The younger John Flanagan served in the Assembly for 16 years before he was elected to the Senate in 2002. He has been re-elected six times.
Flanagan is chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Education. He pushed for more school aid in this year’s budget.
He held a five-and-a-half-hour education hearing in Syracuse in 2013.
Flanagan and others have proposed a bill that would study a change to the way Common Core standards are applied and delay teacher evaluations.
Flanagan practices law. He is of counsel with the firm Forchelli, Curo, Schwartz, Mineo, Carlino and Cohn.
His emphasis is on planning and land use, according to his answers on the 2014 financial disclosure form. He reported a salary between $100,000 and $150,000.
As a lawyer, he was rated 4.4 stars out of 5.0 on lawyers.com by his peers.
A Common Cause analysis of campaign contributions showed Flanagan has accepted donations from the same real estate developers tied to the scandals with Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
He lives in East Northport with his wife Lisa, a school consultant. They have three children.
Here is the 2014 financial disclosure form he filed with the NYS Joint Commission on Public Ethics (new ones are due Friday):
New York Sen. John Flanagan 2014 ethics disclosure
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Sen. John Flanagan Can Help Fix Albany
By the Newsday Editorial Board May 12, 2015
Republican state senators gathered in a closed-door three-hour meeting to choose a new Senate majority leader Monday afternoon. Long Island, it seems, came out a winner.
John Flanagan of East Northport, who was first elected to public office at 25 to replace his father in the Assembly, now holds the top spot in the State Senate. Having served in the legislature for more than half his life, Flanagan, 54, is now at the top of the heap.
During his years in the legislature, Flanagan has been a moderate conservative and consensus builder, neither divisive nor a flamethrower. He’s a good listener. In his acceptance speech Monday, he promised to continue the Senate’s traditional role of “checks and balances” on state government, which means counterbalancing the more liberal Assembly. That’s all to the good.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo gets most of the credit for five on-time state budgets, the property tax cap, tax rebates and the rest of the agenda he’s managed to pass, but that was part of a partnership in which he played the Senate and Assembly against each other. Flanagan must have a strong voice in those conversations. And like his predecessor, Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre, he must be willing to let issues he personally opposes, such as same-sex marriage, come to the floor so the state can have honest votes on critical, controversial issues.
Flanagan’s ascension came about because Skelos was charged by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara last week with extortion, soliciting bribes and conspiracy, as was his son, Adam Skelos. Flanagan, without irony, complimented Skelos Monday, saying the former leader “was all about his family.” Skelos allegedly used the power of his office to force an environmental company, AbTech Industries, and a major real estate developer, Glenwood Management, to hire and pay Adam Skelos. In return, AbTech got help winning a $12-million contract with Nassau County and Glenwood got continued support of major tax-break legislation.
Like Skelos, Flanagan is a lawyer. He earned $100,000 to $150,000 in 2013, according to his ethics disclosure form. Flanagan opposed a proposed ban on outside income for legislators, a stance we think is a mistake. However, last week he quit Forchelli, Curto, Deegan, Schwartz, Mineo & Terrana, the law firm where he worked mostly on land use and planning. That’s smart.
Flanagan isn’t going to be naturally inclined to blow up the Albany “business as usual” model, but once he gets his feet on the ground, we hope he’ll start working to end that corrosive culture. And he likely had to make a lot of old-school deals to get the support of a few senators. Repaying that support shouldn’t cripple his ability to be a strong, reform-minded leader. His successor as chair of the Senate Education Committee is likely to be from upstate, but Flanagan can still use his new perch to protect our beloved and vaunted educational climate.
As for Long Island, it’s the best possible outcome. In an interview with the editorial board last year he said he wanted the state and New York City to do well, “but not at the expense of Long Island.” So expect Flanagan to fight hard for our schools and roads and economic development, like Skelos. He also needs to fight to create a transparent and ethical culture in Albany, which Skelos never did.
http://www.newsday.com/opinion/editorial/sen-john-flanagan-can-help-fix-albany-1.10423689
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A Sudden Elevation for John J. Flanagan, a Vocal Legislator
By Jesse McKinley New York Times MAY 11, 2015
ALBANY — John J. Flanagan was 25 and a second-year law student when his father — Assemblyman John Flanagan Sr., a well-respected Republican from Long Island — died of a heart attack while jogging near the family’s home in Suffolk County.
It was 1986, and just weeks before an election. But a few days after his father’s death, the younger Mr. Flanagan entered the race, at the urging of party leaders, and easily won his father’s seat.
On Monday, Mr. Flanagan, now 54, once again succeeded a fellow Long Islander at the urging of his party, though under different circumstances. The occasion was his election as Senate majority leader, taking over for Dean G. Skelos, who was arrested last week, along with his son, Adam, on federal corruption charges.
And shortly after his colleagues named him majority leader, Mr. Flanagan — who was elected to the Senate in 2002 after 16 years in the Assembly — seemed to express some of the same shock as the events in 1986 had inspired.
“You don’t always plan for a day like this,” he said.
For all that, Mr. Flanagan’s rise in the Senate has not been completely unexpected. As chairman of the Education Committee, he has been vocal on various hot-button issues like prekindergarten, teacher evaluations and the Common Core education standards, sometimes working with Democrats.
And in recent days, Mr. Flanagan has shown flashes of political sophistication in his own party, working outward from his base on Long Island — where nine Republican state senators, including Mr. Skelos, live — while reassuring more conservative upstate Republicans on issues like the Safe Act, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s 2013 gun control law, which he supported but many rural residents abhor.
Mr. Flanagan also seemed cognizant of the troubles that have embroiled other leaders in Albany involving outside income, including Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat who stepped down as Assembly speaker after his arrest in January; Mr. Silver faces federal charges of taking illegal payments disguised as legitimate income from practicing law. On Monday, Mr. Flanagan said that he had resigned last week from a job at Forchelli, Curto, Deegan, Schwartz, Mineo & Terrana, a major Long Island firm. The firm confirmed his resignation.
One of Mr. Flanagan’s law-school classmates, Kevin S. Law, the president of the Long Island Association, a business group, said the new majority leader mixed a calm demeanor with a sharp strategic sense. “Just because he is a gentleman and everyone knows him as a gentleman, no one should take him lightly at the negotiating table,” he said, adding that Mr. Flanagan was “a pro-business legislator.”
Mr. Law added that Mr. Flanagan’s competitive streak extended to pickup basketball games on Long Island. “He can bang the boards,” he said.
Married with three children and living in East Northport, N.Y., Mr. Flanagan is known as a fitness enthusiast — working out at dawn — and charismatic force on the North Shore. “You walk into the room and you know he’s there,” said Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick, a Republican whose district overlaps with Mr. Flanagan’s.
Former colleagues also say Mr. Flanagan is an avid participant in the day-to-day machinations of government — his father was known as one of the fiercest debaters in the Assembly.
“John certainly grew up having a great regard for the legislative process,” said State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, a Democrat who, like Mr. Flanagan, was elected to the Assembly from Long Island in 1986. “And from the beginning, John was a very hands-on legislator.”
Mr. Flanagan’s election was not unanimous. One senator described it as a close contest between Mr. Flanagan and Senator John A. DeFrancisco, who represents the Syracuse area. But Mr. DeFrancisco later praised Mr. Flanagan as a unifying force. “We all follow John Flanagan,” he said. “And we’ll do it as a unit.”
For his part, Mr. Flanagan struck an embracing tone in his early hours as majority leader, saying he would, first and foremost, listen to his colleagues and constituents. But he also seemed aware of the moment, mentioning his father’s intellect, collegiality and ability “to get things done.”
“If I can try and continue to be half the man my father was,” Mr. Flanagan said in closing, “I’ll be able to say I’ve done a darn good job in this position.”