‘It’s not the same.’ Former NY county execs in Congress have advice for George Latimer

As Westchester County executive, George Latimer represents a population of roughly 1 million people, and he presides over an office staff of 32 (though the county employs roughly 4,500 people) and a county operating budget of $2.4 billion. 

After handily winning a high-profile Democratic primary against socialist “Squad” member Rep. Jamaal Bowman in June, Latimer will likely go to Congress in January. (He is highly favored to win the general election in November against Republican Miriam Flisser.) At 71, he will be a freshman lawmaker in a chaotic and acrimonious legislative body of 435, and there is a strong possibility he will be in the minority. There, he will have a staff of about 15, split between Washington D.C. and the offices in his congressional district. Each congressional representative is allocated an annual budget of about $1.8 to $2 million, called their “Members’ Representational Allowance,” to pay their staff and rent their offices. With a salary bump of about $13,000 (House members get an annual salary of $174,000), Latimer will get an 8% raise. He’ll represent about 757,000 people.

Latimer knows that the contrast between the two roles is stark. “When you run a government, you have a host of talented people who run departments, who you can task with: ‘Give me the information on this. Frame the choices for me,’” he told City & State. “Congressman, you don't have that luxury.” 

Serving as county executive since 2018, Latimer has prided himself on a record and a reputation as a bipartisan bridge-builder, and he has decried rampant polarization. While as county executive he has been focused on rebuilding multiple public pools, electrifying the bus fleet and unveiling a 9/11 first responders memorial, he will now be considering matters of geopolitics and federal spending, and he’ll be expected to toe the party line. He’ll have to travel back and forth to Washington on a regular basis, and he’ll be doing all this well into retirement age. It’s no wonder Latimer took months and months of convincing to challenge Bowman. “I'm at a point in my life where I really don't have to run for anything if I don't want to,” he said. “I took my sweet time. I've said many times that I was a reluctant bride.”

It’ll be a hefty adjustment, but Latimer is not the first New York county executive to go to Congress: Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi was formerly Nassau County executive, and fellow Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan was formerly Ulster County executive, while Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro was formerly Dutchess County executive. “When I was the county executive in Nassau County, I had like 8,000 employees,” Suozzi said. “You come to Congress, you've got seven people in your Washington office and seven people in your district office, and it's not the same.” Suozzi, who has held two executive roles, also ran for governor in 2022. 

Asked about their advice for Latimer, the former county executives representing New York in the House said they’ve maintained collaborative relationships with one another, and their experience at the county level has made them stronger federal legislators. And they all seem to harbor a wistfulness, if not outright nostalgia, for the days when they were in charge.

“I don't mean to disparage folks, but we've got enough lawyers in Washington,” said Molinaro, who’s currently running in a tight race against Democratic lawyer Josh Riley. “There's enough people who will quote a line in the bill, but they don't have a clue how those decisions or that provision gets implemented, or how it actually helps or hurts people. Executives do.” Molinaro also ran for governor once.

“You have to switch your executive brain to a legislative brain,” he said. “It's not a rude awakening, it's a transition.” 

This won’t be Latimer’s first experience in a legislative body. Far from it. He has been a Rye City Council member and a Westchester County legislator. He served in the Assembly from 2005 to 2012 and then in the state Senate from 2013 to 2017. He touts the fact that in three decades in public service, he has never lost an election. And being in Congress certainly brings a higher profile. “Nobody really knows what a county executive is, whereas when you're a member of Congress, it was like, ‘ooh Congressman,’” Suozzi said. “It's much more of a well-known position.”

As he prepares to head to Congress in January, Latimer will need to decide what kind of member of Congress he wants to be. Ryan recommends reading the Congressional Management Foundation’s 300-page nonpartisan guide: “Setting Course,” which outlines five options, or “roles.” Does Latimer want to be a “party insider”? That’s someone who is focused on promoting the party ideology and gaining political power through apparatuses like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (think former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney). Or perhaps a “legislative insider”? Someone who wants to pass as many laws as possible and rise through the ranks (think Rep. Hakeem Jeffries). There’s also the “statesman,” whose brand involves eschewing politics to do “what is right” and taking a lot of media interviews (Rep. Mike Lawler? Former Rep. Max Rose?) and the “outsider,” someone who doesn’t give a darn about making waves and wants to gain influence through being willing to speak out (Bowman, who was ousted mainly on the basis of his criticism of Israel). Finally, there’s the “ombudsman,” Ryan’s pick, and one he says dovetails nicely with the duties of a county executive. The “ombudsman” is deeply involved in their district. They focus on constituent services. “You can be a D.C.-oriented member of Congress or you can be a district-oriented member of Congress, and I think as a recovering county executive, your inclination will and should be to be district-focused,” Ryan said. “Washington can make you think that it's more important than the people you serve,” Molinaro added. “That is the furthest thing from the truth.”

Latimer will also have to decide on his legislative priorities for his first term and file formal requests for preferred committee assignments based on what will likely be available and be relevant to his district. Suozzi and Ryan both said focusing on just a few goals is essential. Suozzi said the best advice he got was to “focus on three things.” 

“There's just so many different things that you have coming at you, and the challenge is to pick your priorities and stick with your priorities, and make sure your team is sticking with the priorities also because you have a limited amount of resources,” he said. Suozzi’s three things? “The border, and the state and local tax deduction and bringing money back to my district.” He promptly broke his own rule and added a fourth, not-so-simple priority: healing the divided country.

“You can’t be involved in everything, every bill, every committee, every meeting, every caucus, like you’ve got to pick and focus. Whereas, as county executive, you kind of are involved in everything,” Ryan said. 

After the November election, hiring staff will be Latimer’s major focus. He will need to hire D.C.-based staffers familiar with Congress whom he’s never worked with before. He said he plans to open two district offices, one in White Plains and one in Co-Op City in the Bronx. He’ll have to decide whether to base his chief of staff in Washington or in his district and how many staffers to put in each office. And he may have trouble recruiting his current staff to follow him over to Congress. 

“I'm not going to have the salary structure that I had in Westchester,” Latimer said. He said he also doesn’t want to leave his successor high and dry by poaching his staff. “And it's a little hard to go to somebody who's worked for you, done a great job, and say, ‘Hey, would you take a $40,000 pay cut just to hang with me?’”