NY Congressional Election 2020: Cathy Bernstein Challenges

MANHATTAN, NY — Voters living in New York City's 10th congressional district — which stretches the majority of the West Side of Manhattan and also a handful of neighborhoods in Brooklyn — will head to the polls on Nov. 3 to cast their ballot in this year's election races.

On the ballot will be challenger Cathy Bernstein, a Republican candidate who has lived on the Upper West Side for the past 35 years. She will go up against incumbent Rep. Jerry Nadler — a Democrat who has held the position since 1992 — and Libertarian Michael Madrid and Independent Jeanne Nigro.

Bernstein currently works as a financial consultant, after spending many years working as an accountant.

All New York voters may request a mail-in ballot due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For those who want to head to the polls, click here to find your poll site. Early voting is available from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1.

Patch reached out to all candidates in the primary election to create these profiles.

Cathy Bernstein

Age as of Election Day (Nov. 3)

58

NYC neighborhood of residence

Upper West Side for the past 35 years.

Position Sought

U.S. Congress

Party Affiliation

Republican and Conservative Line

Family

Mom to a wonderful son!

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

No.

Education

UAlbany School of Business, CPA.

Occupation

I have worked at a Big 8 accounting firm specializing in taxation and now do financial consulting. Member of the New York State Society of CPAs and have served on its Taxation of Individuals Committees. Board Member and Treasurer of the WSRC. New York Republican County Committee Member. Social, political and religious activist.

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

N/A

Campaign website

bernsteinforcongress.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

I have lived on the Upper West Side for the past 35 years, and am witnessing the city decline again due to the progressive policies of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Congressman Jerry Nadler. As a fellow constituent, I care deeply about the quality of life in the 10th Congressional District and I am devoted to my community.

The single most pressing issue facing our nation/state/community is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

The single most pressing issue facing our community is homelessness.
My proposals are listed below... but, first, I do need to discuss the events that occurred this summer in July 2020 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The UWS has an exceptionally large homeless population that has been and is currently living on the street. The majority of them are suffering from mental illness and/or substance abuse issues.
This summer, our elected officials with FEMA money (Federal) moved into this area more homeless men into 3 different hotels in a ten-block area that already had two mens shelters. Sadly, there was extraordinarily little oversight and care for the well being of the homeless or the existing community of elders and children.
The Hotel Belleclaire and the Lucerne both have permanent, long -term elderly populations that have resided in the hotel for years and their health was not taken into consideration. They expressed concern as the new residents did not wear masks or socially distance. This is the segment of the population that is the most vulnerable and should be safeguarded at all costs.
At the Hotel Belleclaire, 14 new guests were registered Sex Offenders.
13 of the 14 raped children, boys and girls as young as age 4.
This hotel is within 1000 feet of 2 playgrounds and 3 schools.
Please view my video on this story, here.
At the Hotel Lucerne, 283 men were moved into the hotel who suffered serious substance abuse issues. Many of the men came from the Washington Jefferson Hotel on West 51st Street after tension in the Midtown community. This is where the game of hot potato began.
Homeless who suffer from substance abuse issues require a closed hospital setting where they can get proper treatment/ detoxed. That is true compassion.
Putting men with severe drug issues into hotels (4-star hotels) where they are not required to attend any drug treatment doesn’t help them overcome their addiction and the senseless deaths from overdoses at the hotel bears that out. It also hurts a neighborhood community where children have witnessed shooting up and drug deals.
If our elected officials are adamant that the men should be housed in a hotel, instead of a hospital, why not use the hotels that are empty and 1/3 of the cost at LaGuardia or JFK and use the extra money for mandatory AA and NA meetings and job training. Remember, this is taxpayer money that FEMA was using... this is your tax money. Your elected officials are public servants and should serve the community's needs and safety first.
As I said, this is one of the most pressing, exigent issues facing the 10th Congressional today. NYC has the largest homeless population in the country with estimates per July 2020 of over 58,000 children, women and men, many living in squalor and despair on the street. The City was given an F for its handling of the homeless in 2019 by the Coalition for the Homeless.
While Jerry Nadler has "led a delegation to inspect ICE detention facilities containing separated families", I challenge him to pay the same attention to his district.... Visit the West Side of Manhattan and view our homeless US citizens living in filth, eating out of garbage cans and being preyed on at night.
We also have the right to a safe environment where there is not aggressive panhandling, homeless encampments, open bottles, needles, public urination and defecation, encased mattresses for bed bugs ripped open for sleeping, public exposure to children, and public sex. The residents of the 10th Congressional should not live in fear walking down the street at night.
I have spent my time attending Community Board meetings, meeting with the City Council women for District 6 with DJ Jaffe, Executive Director of Mental Illness Policy Org, and talking to the homeless in the 10th Congressional.
Some were able to express their need for affordable housing, drug and alcoholic treatment, and safe and clean homeless shelters.
For those with dogs and cats, they told me about their loyalty to their pets and the fact that the shelters had no special accommodations for them.
But the majority of the homeless were mentally ill and they could not converse on any rational level, did not know what year it was or even what city they were in.
The very few who could speak told me of hearing voices and of being preyed upon. Unfortunately, I do not think they were being paranoid as this is the group that has experienced the most violence sleeping unprotected on the streets at night.
The Liberal view is that being homeless is a right to be protected and that we should eliminate the stigma and educate the public. Under de Blasio it is illegal to arrest the homeless and the police officers have not received enough training to enact Kendra’s Law.
The problem is that New York State has slashed its psychiatric bed count in a movement known as Deinstitutionalization, which reduced the State costs of caring for the mentally ill but moved this problem to the local levels.
Proposals:
A significant increase in federal funding for the 10th Congressional.
Compassionately help the Homeless to move off the streets to affordable housing, drug and alcoholic treatment centers, safer and cleaner homeless shelters with required spaces set aside for those with dogs and cats, and psychiatric hospitalization for those who suffer from schizophrenia and bipolar episodes.
Work immediately with HUD for special emergency measures to increase the budget for the homeless in providing urgently needed support for shelters, housing and mental health services.
Eliminate the IMD Exclusion Rule of Medicaid Permanently.
(IMD Exclusion Rule – restricts any use of Federal Medicaid funds to pay for psychiatric care hospitals known as “Institutions for Mental Disease” for individuals from the age of 22 to 64 unless the facility has 16 beds or less and/or the stay is 15 days and less).
The background was that Congress wanted the states to meet their financial responsibility, but with NYC now housing the largest homeless population in the country, the IMD Exclusion Rule of Medicaid has placed the homeless in the 10th Congressional in a precarious, life threatening conditions with insufficient funds to adequately provide for their needs.
Support the Police with more training in using Kendra's Law.
(Named after Kendra Webdale, who died when a schizophrenic individual had stopped taking his medicine and pushed her in front of a subway.

What are your thoughts on the state and national response to the coronavirus pandemic? Do you favor such measures as limiting operation of non-essential businesses or restricting indoor/outdoor dining? And do you favor a nationwide mask mandate?

The retrospective deep dive of the Coronavirus and the mistakes made at the City, State and Federal level will fill many bookshelves, but lack of transparency will be the main topic. That being said, I am proud of my fellow New Yorkers. We were hit hard and pulled together to help each other out. I do not favor limiting operations of non-essential business or restricting dining as we can wear masks and socially distance. Even as I support mask use as a safety precaution, I do not favor a nationwide mask mandate as many in the elderly /disabled community do suffer from health conditions that would preclude them from wearing a mask.

How would you address the concerns of the Black Lives Matter movement, and what are your thoughts on the demonstrations held since the death of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake?

First, the death of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake ( with his 3 children in the back seat) are tragic. However, first, I would like to address another senseless death here in NYC... that of Eric Garner. He died in July of 2014 by a police chokehold for the crime of selling loose cigarettes. We had large scale protests here in NYC and across the country... This was an issue for Congress years ago.
I am firm believer in the right to peacefully protest.
I disapprove of the widescale looting that went on in the city which only set small businesses back further, some of them closed... never to reopen.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I am the Republican candidate and also am on the Conservative line.
My answer to the critical difference between Jerry Nadler and myself are addressed below.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

It is nice to start with a compliment, and Congressman Nadler is consistent on his positions. He doesn't flip flop. He is a Progressive who was proudly endorsed by AOC.
It makes it easy for me to run against him as we are different on 5 key issues:
Many of them are state and local issues, but Jerry Nadler threw his support of the bully pulpit behind these issues.
1) NYPD - Jerry Nadler is for defunding the NYPD.
I do not believe that the NYPD should have been defunded.
The community/NYPD meeetings I attended after the defunding had many constituents complaining of witnessing drug deals, robberies, assaults, cars broken into during the day, grand larceny, etc with inadequate police support.
The NYPD were very specific that their manhours had been cut and to call their elected officials.
2) Jerry Nadler is for Progressive Bail Reform.
I am opposed to the new bail reform, and the crime numbers from the NYPD are a testament to the fact that it does not work ( remember, these #'s don't tell the whole story as for many months, the constituents did not leave their homes in 2020).
Murder is up 36.2%
Burglary is up 41.8%
Grand Larceny Auto is up 62.2%
Over and over, I hear from constituents, (especially the elderly who are afraid of falling if they get robbed) that they are nervous to leave their home.
On a different note, our city's tax coffers are based on tourists visiting with their families. Would you wish to travel to a city with high crime?

3) Jerry Nadler is for releasing felons early from prison.
Let me start with the assertion that inmates should receive more humane care to help them reenter society and our tax dollars would be better spent on new larger jails ON Rikers with better oversight, conflict mediation training for the staff, rehabilitation and vocational skills, updated mental health facilites, drug and alcoholic treatment.
However, I believe prisoners should serve their jail sentences.
"Of approximately 2,500 defendants sprung from Rikers early because of COVID safety planning, at least 250 have been arrested again since, according to Michael LiPetri, chief of Crime Control Strategies for the NYPD....But he says the consequences of the larger-scale release of prisoners are now showing up in the arrest data, with those 250 re-offenders being arrested 450 times so far during the pandemic."
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/new...
In addition, no planning seems to have been taken into account when they were released early... and they joined the ranks of the homeless in NYC.
The men I interviewed at the Hotel Lucerne; many of them were fresh out of prison and dealing with drug addictions.
4) Jerry Nadler is for Sanctuary City Policies
These headlines below tell the story of victims not being protected by our elected officials. This is not fear mongering, these are facts... folks who faced the consequences of our failed sanctuary city policies.
"The country’s top immigration official blamed the “sanctuary policies” of New York City on Friday for the sexual assault and killing of a 92-year-old woman"
https://apnews.com/article/7b1...
https://nypost.com/2020/03/03/...
“What makes this case so frustrating is that local law enforcement failed to honor 10 detainers, despite Soto-Ubaldo’s lengthy criminal history. How can local politicians – in good conscience – say they’re protecting their constituents when they pass laws that release criminals back into our communities? Detainer non-cooperation threatens public safety."
https://www.ice.gov/news/relea...
5) Jerry Nadler is for NYS DOE Government Oversight of Private Schools, Catholic Schools and Yeshivas.
I am for less interference by local and State agencies with respect to private school curriculum. Regarding new guidelines from DOE, private schools, Yeshivas and Catholic Schools object to having the government dictate to them the do's and don'ts of their own curriculums. This is another example of overreach by the government, and it needs to stop. Parents are entitled to choose an education for their children consistent with their traditions and religious beliefs.
This has been paused, but it's not over yet. Another battle between progressives in government ( Nadler) and the parents who are paying for a private school education.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform

1) HOUSING:
BALANCE BETWEEN REDEVELOPMENT AND CURRENT HOMEOWNERS:
Building in New York, and promoting growth in our city, should not come at the steep cost of preventing working class families from living in and engaging with our community. We must find the intersection between promoting positive and uplifting development for our community while balancing the negative externalities of increased prices and general unaffordability. Most saliently, we must combat homelessness and defend those in danger of being marginalized in such a way within their own communities and homes.
ELIMINATE SALT TAX CAP:
Eliminate the $10,000 Cap on SALT Taxes that hurt New Yorkers and erode property value. Residents of NYC already pay some of the highest tax rates in the country. Those in Congress should be arguing for what is best for his or her constituents, regardless of party affiliation. Jerry Nadler has done surprisingly very little to offset the steep burden that New Yorkers face on the tax front.
10% FEDERAL RENTER'S TAX DEDUCTION:
Promoting a yearly ten percent (10%) Federal Rent Tax Deduction for families making under $100,000 adjusted gross income in the current tax year to help with the ever-increasing cost of living in the city.
Today, the average age of a home buyer in the country is 46 years old. In the 10th Congressional, more than half of the population are renters. A permanent Federal Rent Tax Deduction of 10% will offer the same benefits to renters as to homeowners, and help aid the poor, working and middle class to save for the American dream of home ownership.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I have spent decades helping my community through political, charitable, and religious work with fellow constituents from both sides of the aisle. My background is financial; I have worked on the tax side, budget planning and with clients. But, this is more of a common sense governance of advocating for New Yorkers and their safety and needs. I understand the premise that public service is for the benefit of your tax paying constituents with the goal of improving their lives.
Until safety and quality of life improves, the tax base of NY will continue to flee the city.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

"Trust your gut" I helped out at an empowerment program for young minority girls and thought every girl should hear that growing up!

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

NYC Needs Major Capital Improvements To Its Aging Infrastructure:
Jerry Nadler says he has "long focused on improving New York City's Infrastructure."
A recent 2018 ranking of the Worst Infrastructure in the United States puts NYC as the 7th worst city in the country.
Decades of under funding our infrastructure, increased building by developers and a population that keeps growing has taken a toll on our city and pushed it to the breaking point. Blackouts, brownouts, flooding in the subways and streets, subway software glitches, water main breaks, manholes blowing up, uneven cracking streets, and bridges in disrepair are the result of years of neglect.
Jerry Nadler has advocated and spent considerable taxpayer's money on studies for a Cross Harbor Rail Tunnel. Decades later, there still is no progress. The inability to lean across the aisle and work on behalf of New Yorkers mass transportation needs is not taken into consideration.