Congressional candidates Tom Suozzi and Mazi Pilip speak with the Eagle
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New York 3rd Congressional candidates Tom Suozzi and Mazi Pilip spoke with the Eagle about their campaigns and the district ahead of next week’s special election. Screenshots via Suozzi and Pilip campaigns
By Ryan Schwach
Ahead of this coming Tuesday’s special election, the Queens Daily Eagle spoke with New York 3rd Congressional District candidates Thomas Suozzi and Mazi Pilip to ask about their campaigns and the issues most important to their potential constituents.
Democrat Tom Suozzi has spent nearly three decades in public office, including six years representing NY-03.
Suozzi, a moderate Democrat and self-described centrist, spent 1994 through 2001 as mayor of his native Glen Cove in Long Island, a position his father held in the 1950s. He went on to serve seven years as the Nassau County executive before entering the private sector.
He returned to politics in 2017 as the representative for the NY-03, where his flagship issue was
restoring the state and local tax, or SALT, deduction – a proposal that ultimately never passed through the Senate.
Suozzi left congress in 2023 to run for governor, where he lost in the Democratic primary to Kathy Hochul.
Suozzi has pulled in around $4.4 million for his bid to retake his old seat.
Republican Mazi Pilip was born in Ethiopia, and at 12-years-old immigrated to Israel, where she attended college and served in the paratroopers in the Israeli Defense Forces.
In 2005, she immigrated to Great Neck with her husband and has spent the last two years as a Nassau County legislator.
Should Pilip be elected to the seat, it is likely she will be the first Black Jewish person elected to the House.
Pilip has raised $1.3 million and has about $628,561 on hand as of Friday.
The following interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Tom Suozzi
What do you think are the main three issues facing the Third Congressional District?
Affordability, which is why I pushed for the state and local tax deduction, is my number one issue. The immigration crisis, and then just generally the division and lack of productivity in Congress. It's broken, the whole system is broken. Everybody is just focused on attacking each other and playing petty partisan political games instead of actually getting stuff done.
How do you hope to fix that infighting and dysfunction in Congress?
I was vice chairman of a group called the Problem Solvers Caucus in Congress. We always worked together, 25 Democrats and 25 Republicans. We met every week to try and find common ground. We were the architects of the framework for the infrastructure bill, which will bring so much money back to the district. We did bipartisan work on a thing called the CHIPS Act, and there was gun legislation. We did veterans’ legislation. I brought so much money back to the district based upon working across party lines.
Your opponent has tried to hold you partially responsible for the current migrant crisis. How do you respond to that?
It's absurd, and she should hold [Former Representative] Peter King accountable too, because Peter King and I wrote an op-ed together to try and find a compromise on immigration. I'm not about sound bites, I'm about finding solutions. I've worked on this issue in a bipartisan fashion and we finally have a bipartisan solution in front of us.
What are your solutions to the current migrant crisis?
I have a lot of solutions that I proposed in my op-ed piece with Peter King back in 2019. And things that I've talked about, an Ellis Island for the southern border, for example. But forget about what I think, there's a bipartisan, comprehensive deal in place right now. We should be running to get that passed. I'm in favor of it, my opponent says she's against it.
The race for the seat has been shortened with the special election. What has been your strategy for reaching out to voters?
The voters know me because I've been around for a long time. But I've accepted every single interview, I've accepted every single debate, accepted every single civic hall meeting. I've raised the money to do the TV and literature and all that type of jazz, and the digital. And I have an incredibly strong ground campaign with tremendous partners helping me knock on doors and make phone calls.
Combating crime has been made a central feature for the race of the seat. Are there any crime issues that you feel are unique to the district?
I ran the 12th largest police department in the country as Nassau County executive, and we reduced the crime rate to the lowest crime rate in America for any community over 500,000 people. I am very pro-law enforcement. But when I saw those cops getting beaten up the other day by the migrants, we should deport those migrants immediately. They should be kicked out of the country. If somebody came into your house and broke all the furniture, would you let them stay over another night? They should be kicked out immediately. People are concerned about the tent city over in Creedmoor, people are concerned about their businesses, people knocking on their doors to their businesses or their houses, and they are concerned about whether or not there's going to be crime related to it. I will always support law enforcement. I will always support public safety. It's one of my number one priorities.
You mentioned Creedmooor. What are your thoughts on that shelter and how do you feel it's being managed?
I'm not happy that it's there. I don't think it's being managed as well as it could be, and people were talking about trying to increase the number of people that are there and I would totally oppose that.
What do you say to voters who feel you abandoned the district to run for governor?
I say thank you very much for your compliment, because they say that I'm the only one who could win the district. So, thanks for the endorsement. I ran for governor because our state has some of the highest taxes in the country, and because crime was not being addressed properly, and because New York State has always had too much corruption.
Santos was a national embarrassment for the district. What do you think of the lasting impacts of his election to office?
Well, hopefully everybody will do a better job of vetting candidates, from the parties to the press, and that's why it's so outrageous that my opponent has been so non-transparent in this race.
You were in Congress for six years, what was an issue you didn't get to address in that time that you will push for if you're elected back to the seat?
Well, I passed the State and Local Tax Deduction Act to restore the state and local tax deduction three times for the House. So, I did my part in getting it through the House. But if I got back to Congress, I would work on not only passing it through the House again, but also getting it through the Senate.
The majority of the district falls on Long Island but the district also includes a number of voters in Queens. How do you plan to represent your Queens constituency specifically?
Well, I was the first member who represented this district to put an office in Queens. It became a famous office when George Santos kept my sign up there for a long time – they were doing this press conference about him and my nice name was still there. I also did town hall meetings and would go to civic groups in Queens and I made myself accessible to the different parts of the district on a regular basis. I would go to the We Love Whitestone meetings, I would go to the meetings in Little Neck and Douglaston, I would go to the community groups and I have a headquarters now in Bay Terrace. I would go down to visit North Shore Towers. I would go down to Floral Park and Bellrose and meet with the different communities there. I would go to community board meetings. I always made myself accessible to the district and tried to serve the district.
Mazi Pilip
What do you think are the main three issues facing the Third Congressional District?
The main three issues are inflation, the border crisis, and then the crime that's out of control because of extreme policies.
Combating crime is a central feature of your campaign. What about the district's crime issues are unique to the district specifically?
The same extremely progressive policies that are giving more power, more rights to criminals other than law abiding citizens, making our law enforcement weak by not supporting them, and by not giving them the tools they need to fight crime, that is a big issue.
Is there a specific crime statistic in the district that you are looking at?
This is what I'm hearing from the people, and things I see. In the last few years, especially since the defunding the police movement started and then all these cashless bail things, people feel very much right to come and steal things from people, steal cars, break into people's homes, attacking people on the street, those kinds of crimes that we are feeling in the last few years. Again, it's all connected to cashless bail and progressive criminal reform. Now, also the migrant crisis, which is also related, because when you have unvetted migrants making their way from the border illegally and living next to you, they are also committing a crime. Just last week, you saw what happened with the police officers. When illegal immigrants attacked our police officers, this is how bad it is, and then the next day they are out with no bail. Basically, by sending this kind of message of, 'We're not supporting law enforcement,' is giving a right for people, illegal immigrants, and even Americans who live in this country not to follow the rules and regulations and law enforcement.
You called the ongoing migrant crisis an 'invasion' this week. How is the crisis specifically affecting voters in the NY-3?
Over 200,000 migrants made their way to New York. Just next to us, between Queens and Nassau County there is a migrant center, [at Creedmoor,] a tent city, with over 1,000 male migrants living there. I spoke with residents around there and people feel uncomfortable even sending their children to play at the playground across from the tent city. They have been seeing migrants asking for money, migrants using drugs and alcohol, basically the environment, the area, they're unsafe for children to feel comfortable. People don't want to walk at night alone. This is a close situation to home, people are feeling it and is a big concern for the Third Congressional District.
What are your solutions for the migrant crisis?
Right now we need to secure our borders, we need to build the wall, we need to increase the number of border control agents, we need to tighten our asylum seeker standard, and we need to defund the nonprofit organizations that are receiving tax dollars and encouraging people to come illegally from the borders.
You said that in the past you have been holding Suozzi partially responsible for the migrant crisis.
He's fully responsible, with Biden, who he supported 100 percent of the time. He supported ‘The Squad’ members over 90 percent of the time. He was there in the majority. They had the majority in both houses, and he created this mess. I wish we didn't have to deal with this. But this is a reality that they brought to our life. Now, we have to handle it.
The campaign for the race has been shortened with the special election. What has been your strategy for reaching voters in that amount of time?
I am out there meeting voters every single day. I start my morning, come home around 11 o'clock. I'm engaging myself with voters, I'm there to hear their concern, to understand their concern and then to be a good congressmember who is going to be the voice for the people. I am passing my message through the media as well. It has been very busy. I am out there for sure.
It appears as though you've relied heavily on surrogates and haven't done many interviews with the press and you haven't until recently, engaged in any Suozzi's request for debates. What do you say to people who have criticized your campaign for not being very transparent?
That's a total lie, an absolute lie. I'm so transparent. I'm so proud of my achievement in life. I'm so proud of serving Nassau County residents. I'm out there every single day. I'm a hard working person, I'm not hiding behind anything, I am there talking to people. One of the things people love about me is that I'm not a typical politician who promises and doesn't deliver. I delivered the last two years as a county legislator.
Do you think Republican leaders in the district have tarnished their relationship with voters after supporting George Santos?
Absolutely not. George Santos, he lied in disgrace. As soon as we found out, we told him, all the elected officials, including the party leaders, to resign. Since then we have not even talked to him at all. But again, this is not about George Santos at all, this is about saving our country.
People are going to judge us based on record, they're going to judge me based on my record, they're going to judge Tom Suozzi based on his record, and he has a very bad record when it comes to border security, when it comes to law enforcement, when it comes to increasing taxes.
Tom Suozzi holds a pretty heavy lead in the fundraising race. What are you doing to combat that?
I'm also out there meeting donors and people are giving a lot of money, absolutely. I have been receiving a lot of money. He has extra time to raise more money. The money he's spending against me is not going to help him on Feb. 13.
A majority of the district falls in Long Island, but the district also includes a number of voters in Queens. How do you plan to represent your Queens constituency specifically?
We are feeling the same issues. Queens is around the corner. The same things, migrant crisis, safety, law enforcement, and then, bringing back SALT deduction to New Yorkers. Those are the big issues. Those are the three issues that we share.
Early voting for the race has already begun, and goes until Feb. 11, and Election Day is this coming Tuesday, Feb. 13.
