Gary Ackerman:
Still Crazy After All These Years

Gary Ackerman: Still Crazy After All These Years

I’ve known Gary Ackerman since the flood — the flood of Castle newspapers he spread throughout the Queens College Campus in 1962 or was it ‘63?

We went to school together, although I was much younger – still am. Paul Simon, the poet/singer of our generation, was in Queens College back then too. I’ve borrowed the headline of this column from Paul... it just seemed to fit perfectly for me.

Gary and I have been friends ever since Queens College. We’ve attended each other’s family celebrations up until a month ago when Gary’s son Corey was married the same day as my daughter Allison was Bat Mitzvahed. Gary’s daughter Lauren is locking in her Shea Stadium wedding date early so that I can share in that one. Put simply: we’re longtime, very good friends with great affection for each other.

We’ve been politically connected at the hip — before his surgery. As a matter of fact, I managed and/or served as his campaign chairman when he was first elected to the State Senate in 1978, first elected to Congress in ’83 and several times thereafter, including his last redistricting battle of 10 years ago.

  We’ve been business partners since I took over the Tribune from him in 1979. Our business relationship has seen a couple of changes as the Tribune grew and was sold and Gary also grew — in Congress. But both of us are invested in this newspaper, both financially and spiritually. In addition to our friendship and political simpatico, our commitment to providing quality community journalism to the people of Queens unites us.

Trib/PRESS Publisher Michael Schenkler and his friend Congressman Gary Ackerman in a photo taken a little while ago.

Hmmm! Sharpton and Schenkler... one of them changed the spelling? Both caricatures – the one of the Rev. Al Sharpton which was part of the cartoon that appeared on this page two weeks ago and the weekly logo of Trib Publisher and columnist Mike Schenkler – are the handiwork of our distressed Not 4 Pub cartoonist, Dom Nunziato. We were wondering if perhaps there is a family connection between the men pictured who use words to get a reaction.

Gary and I are a team; there is a wonderful camaraderie between us. My apologies to the Republican who runs against him — you ain’t got a chance. Although this paper always tries to be open-minded and fair, how can you be better for the people of Queens, the City, the nation or the world than a person like Gary Ackerman? It’s a tough task and there are not many up to it.

Now, if I don’t sound objective, I’m probably not. But when I put on my interview hat, I can still ask pretty probing questions. That’s just what I did on Monday afternoon when Gary came a-calling.

Actually I did more for this planned interview.

Both Gary and I have credentials as teachers and journalists; so I decided to use the interview session as a learning laboratory for four young reporters. Although I carried much of the interview, they were each told, in advance, to prepare a tough question for the Congressman, take notes and write a 350-word story.

I’m going to edit and excerpt from their four stories in order to tell the story of Monday’s interview.

The following is a composite of the stories written by: Angela Montefinise, Susan Lee, Ben Abelson and Shams Tarek.

Equality is the Key for Local Congressman

The process of redistricting has left carnation-wearing Congressman Gary Ackerman with 200,000 new Queens constituents and the largest Asian population of any Congressional district in the mainland United States – and the man who praises equality in all aspects couldn’t be happier about it.

A decade after the remappers moved his district east and stretched it along the north shore through Nassau all the way to Suffolk County, they have used the latest census figures to bring the Queens kid back home.

Ackerman, who was the son of a taxicab driver and climbed the ranks to become a Congressman, stopped by the offices of the Tribune – the paper he founded – and its sister paper the PRESS this week. Ackerman is spending more time in Queens to help get “reacquainted” with his new constituents and, he ended up discussing everything from benefits for illegal immigrants to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; from the need for campaign finance reform to his opinion that the word “God” should be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Ackerman voted “present” instead of supporting a House of Representatives resolution disagreeing with a court decision that said “God” didn’t belong in the pledge.

It was “a feel-good kind of thing” for Congress, Ackerman said, a sort of chest-thumping exercise, he implied, when he actually stood and performed the motion.  The pledge “should be an independent decision, not a government one” according to Ackerman, and in his personal opinion, the word “God” should not be present.  “If you want to believe in God, that’s wonderful…that’s choice.  Under the law you don’t have to say the pledge…[but] I don’t know many kids who’d do that.”

One common theme in every subject Ackerman discussed was his belief in equal representation for all people, something he said he will take to his new district which has a “majority minority” population, if its Asians, Hispanics and blacks are added together.

All it takes to succeed in America is a little elbow grease, an education and tons of hard work, according to Ackerman, the almost 20-year incumbent of the 5th District

The main reason that so many people do not succeed, and are trapped on the bottom of America’s economic scale, is that “those people aren’t as motivated, and that’s the real problem of our society.”   Ackerman blamed this lack of motivation on a society that “turns a blind eye” to the poor.

While Ackerman took a strongly libertarian stance on the pledge, he echoed a classically liberal notion of upward social mobility when the topic changed to that of individual success.  “When you have a system that gives everybody the opportunity…if you work, really hard…you can really become anything you want to become,” he said.

Ackerman himself grew up in public housing in Brooklyn and Queens, before deciding to attend Queens College after his dad told him it was free.  This was one of the major opportunities in his life, he said, and he stressed the importance of education as the avenue to success.

“When you have a system giving everyone an opportunity to become the very best they can become without the constraints or limits according to religion or economic status,” success is not far, according to Ackerman.  But the Congressman, when pressed, conceded that America faces innate challenges in areas like campaign finance reform and wealth distribution.

Although Ackerman, who is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and the ranking Democrat on the International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said he is ready to take over the new district, he did criticize the process of creating minority seats through redistricting. He said, “America has to mature to the point where we see more than the shapes of people’s eyes and the color of their pigmentation.” He added of ethnicity, “We should discount all of that,” but that the way to do that is to, “have more people speaking the same language, and I don’t mean English, I mean the language of humanity, the language of inclusiveness, and the language of opportunity.”

Ackerman believes the system works even in the face of poverty, whether his own – he worked two jobs just to pay for his books in college – or his constituents’.

He discussed benefits for illegal immigrants, saying that “it’s essential” to provide basic services to all people. “We don’t provide those services based on pedigree . . . The whole thing is stupid. Why would you not inoculate a child? This is the humane part of our society.”

Ackerman asserts immigration is good for the economy and for the public good but has some practical concerns.

“I’m in favor of immigration but we also need rules,” he said.  “We have to have some rules and regulations in America, or the world would empty out here.  But “national security” is an excuse being made up by the anti-immigration people.”

“We should be going after the terrorists,” he added. “If someone wants to come here to be a doctor, I want them here.”

Ackerman even takes the same easy-mannered, practical American approach to an issue as thorny as the Middle East crisis.

“Israelis and Palestinians both see Jerusalem as their home,” he said.  “Instead of fighting over the same piece of pie, why not fight over a bigger piece of pie?”

He proposes – to the initial amusement and later chin-rubbing of anyone who’ll listen – that Jerusalem be expanded (even consider air rights), with the newly-apportioned part of the City given to the Palestinians.

“It’s just a real estate deal,” he said.

Welcome Home, Gary

And so Gary Ackerman, the teacher turned journalist turned public servant, shared his thoughts with another generation aspiring to help mold a new America. He does it well.

Angela had met and written about Gary previously; Susan, Ben and Shams met him for the first time. They each captured his spirit in their 350 word efforts. Trib/PRESS editor, Tamara Hartman, also sat in on the interview.

Although I had not extensively planned for the session with Gary, it is interesting to see the outcome. It is also interesting to note that a group of journalists who joined me for the interview of my friend who represents a majority – minority district, included an Italian, a Korean, a Jew, a Bengali and a mutt of German/Polish extraction.

Gary, welcome back home to Queens.

Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato

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Michael Schenkler can be reached at: MSchenkler@queenspress.com