Hooper Re-Elected to Assembly in a Landslide

Earlene Hooper, the incumbent in the race for the 18th District of the New York Assembly, is heading back to Albany.

Hooper held a crushing lead (83 percent-17 percent) over her opponent, Derek Partee, early Wednesday morning as the Nassau County Board of Elections posted its unofficial results.

With 98.7 percent of the ballots counted, Hooper, D-Hempstead, was ahead of Partee, R-Hempstead, by more than 15,000 votes for the seat in the 18th Assembly District. This district includes parts of Merrick, Baldwin, East Meadow, Lakeview and West Hempstead. 

Hooper, the deputy speaker and highest-ranking woman in the New York State Legislature, has been at her post since she was elected in a 1988 special election. A social worker by profession, she is an active unionist, according to her website. Hooper is also an active member of the NAACP and has served as an administrator in the New York State Department of Social Services. She also serves as a professor at Adelphi's Graduate School of Social Work, where she earned her master's degree in social work.

On her Web site, Hooper writes that her legislative priorities include "securing increased state funding for local school districts, fighting for drug rehabilitation programs, ensuring safe affordable housing for all New Yorkers, protecting the environment and strengthening economic development."

She supports a four percent cap on real property taxes to stop the tide of foreclosures in the area and efforts to create jobs that will actually pay well.

"People are now working in jobs where they are far below their qualifications," Hooper said. "I feel it personally.  It is a very sad situation. We need to do something to turn this around."

Her opponent, Partee, has been a resident of Hempstead for 56 years, and he graduated from Southern University, with a BS in psychology. He also earned his master's degree in public administration from C.W. Post. Partee retired as a homicide detective after 25 years with the Nassau County Police Department. During his time with the force, he received three medals of commendation and two meritorious recognition awards from the police department. Partee is a lifelong member of the NAACP, the Omega Psi Phi fraternity and the East Coast Gang Investigators Association.

He focused his campaign on "real tax relief," calling for a repeal of the MTA payroll tax for local businesses, a cap on property tax increases and the restoration of the STAR property tax rebate program. "We can't spend money we don't have," he said, adding that state spending needs to brought under control.

A theme of Partee's campaign was reforming the ethics and practices of state politics, including asking state legislators to practice complete financial disclosure. According to Partee, "we need to put the needs of Nassau families ahead of the special interests of the NYC political bosses."