Election 2016

Gary Port hopes third time’s a charm

Lawyer will again challenge Ed Ra for Assembly seat

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Former U.S. Army Lt. Col. Gary Port has announced that he will run for a third time for the State Assembly’s 19th District seat against Republican incumbent Ed Ra. Port, a Democrat, ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2012 and 2014, losing by over 10,000 votes each time.

Port, a divorce attorney who lives in West Hempstead, said he is running again because he is outraged by the community’s current representation. The 19th District skews conservative, and as a result, voters would have to cross party lines to elect a Democrat, something that generally doesn’t happen in local elections. Port said he would ask district residents to vote their consciences instead of just for their party.

After finishing law school in 1986, Port joined the Army and was stationed at Fort Bliss, in New Mexico and Texas, where he was a judge advocate general. After leaving the Army in 1990, he joined the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. Before challenging Ra, Port ran against Town of Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray in 2011. Having suffered three defeats in four years, he attributes his motivation to mount another campaign to his dissatisfaction with the political system — and to a stubborn streak.

“I’m an idiot,” Port said matter-of-factly. “Part of the problem is, I get offended when we cede seats. Too often, the Democrats say, ‘Oh, we’re not going to win that, so we’ll just put up a placeholder.’”

He said he believes that simply forfeiting the 19th District seat would slight the community. “I don’t care if it’s a tough seat,” he said. “We have to run every seat like we’re going to win, because otherwise it’s not a democracy.”

Port spoke with local residents at the South Side Civic Association meeting in Floral Park on April 14, touching on a number of issues, among them the status of the Common Core curriculum. With students opting out of standardized tests at an increasing rate, he said, the state needs to assess education guidelines.

“It is terrible — it was done without any real thought,” he said of the institution of the Common Core. “Governor Cuomo signed on because we were testing to keep track of teachers … it makes no sense.”

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