George Latimer has one foot in White Plains and another in Washington, wrapping up his seven-year tenure as Westchester County executive while preparing to start work as a rookie congressman.
Easily winning his House seat on Nov. 5 after a bruising Democratic primary in June against Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Latimer heads to Congress at the ripe age of 71 after a long career in county and state government (and as a marketing executive). He served 26 years as county legislator, assemblyman and state senator before ascending to county executive in 2018.
His new role will be very different than the one he’s leaving.
Rather than calling the shots as leader of a large administration and county workforce, Latimer joins a large, jostling field of players as one of 435 House members. He will also be a D.C. newcomer and part of a minority party, which limits his clout and puts a premium on collaboration and bipartisan work.
In an exit/entrance interview this week with the USA Today Network, Latimer talked about both the job he’s departing and the one he’s starting — moments that stood out, for good and for ill, and what he hopes to achieve as a new congressman and Democrat in a Republican-controlled Congress. He’ll represent the southern half of Westchester and a sliver of the Bronx in New York’s 16th Congressional District.
Latimer is set to sign a $2.5 billion county budget on Wednesday, his last as county executive. He officially steps down on Jan. 2, the day before his swearing in at the U.S. Capitol.
Here’s how he responded to a series of questions, shortened into summaries and direct quotes:
Q: What are you most proud of from your 7 years as Westchester County executive?
“I’ll give you best day/worst day,” Latimer suggested, singling out the 2022 ribbon-cutting for a rebuilt sports complex in Mount Vernon as his best. Latimer, who grew up in Mount Vernon and had his high school graduation at Memorial Field, relished its reopening both for sentimental reasons and the relief of finishing a $40 million renovation after 12 years of planning and work.
“It was an emotional moment that said, ‘We accomplished something, we did something that was concrete,'” he said. “If I look at my overall several years, that’s what I would look at — concrete things we were able to accomplish.”
Westchester County Executive George Latimer delivers remarks at the brand new Memorial Field in Mount Vernon, Sept. 21, 2022.
His worst day? Reckoning with the deaths of 70 Westchester residents in one night as the covid contagion swept into the county in 2020, with another 30 fatalities expected that day. “We had no capacity in the county between the funeral parlors or the crematoriums or the cemeteries to handle that many civilian deaths,” Latimer recalled.
Nothing in politics prepared him for that. He and county officials soon chose a grim solution: renting two refrigerated trucks as temporary storage for bodies.
The covid crisis, he said, would become the “defining moment” of his tenure — a long, grueling ordeal that included his giving daily briefings to update Westchester residents on new cases and deaths during the pandemic’s worst stages.
Q: What are you leaving undone in Westchester?
Two big capital projects have yet to be taken up: reconfiguring the county airport’s terminal, and renovating the Westchester County Center, which was built in the 1930s and last overhauled in the ’80s.
“There’s lots of things, large and small,” he said. “But if I stayed another four years, there’d be undone things at the end of that. You never get everything done.”
Westchester County Executive George Latimer, photographed June 26, 2024, defeated first term incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary for New York’s 16th congressional district seat.
Q: What’s the main challenge your successor will face in Westchester?
Changing federal policies could put unexpected pressure on county finances, which are now stable, Latimer said. Any Medicaid funding cuts in Washington, for example, could pinch New York and its counties, which share the cost of the public health coverage with the federal government. (Fiscal pain in Albany could get passed down to the county level, he said.)
“So that is, I think, a cloud that sort of hangs out there, whatever’s going to happen to state and federal policies,” he said.
Q: What do you hope to get done in your first year in Congress?
Pinpoint the needs of a diverse district that ranges from dense urban areas to super-affluent suburbs.
Among his priorities: flood mitigation and other infrastructure upgrades; and improving water quality in the Long Island Sound for shore communities in southeast Westchester.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer, with Ken Jenkins, thanks his supporters after declaring victory in his race for congress at the Coliseum in White Plains Nov. 5, 2024. Latimer defeated Miriam Flisser in the race.
Another priority is lifting the cap on SALT deductions when Congress revamps the federal tax code. Lawmakers in both parties from high-tax states like New York and New Jersey are keen to raise or eliminate the $10,000 limit on deductions for state and local taxes. (A GOP-led Congress imposed that cap in 2017 during the first Trump administration.)
Latimer has met 30 to 40 of his future colleagues, but still has a lot of introductions to make.
“A lot of times,” he said, “legislation happens because of personal relationships, so you have to build those relationship and, for my case, in my party and also across the aisle, because the House is held by the Republicans ever so slightly — but it doesn’t matter; Republicans are still in charge.”
“And while there are some things we’re going to fight about, we have ideological differences on, there are things where you could find common ground, and I’d hope that we could. So you still want to have relationships with people, even if you don’t agree on some major things.”
Q: On what issues can you find common ground with a Republican House majority?
Aside from non-partisan issues such as flood prevention, and interests that cross party lines such as the SALT cap, Latimer saw hope for agreement in an area long mired in partisan strife: border security and immigration reform.
Primary win: How did he win? George Latimer’s take on what drove wide primary victory over Bowman
“When people talk about how do you strengthen the border, how do you have a path to work for people that want to come and work, when you need the people working in these jobs, I think there’s cooperation that can be found on that.”
Q: What do Democrats need to do to regain majorities in Congress?
“First of all, the House is up every two years and this is a very closely held House,” Latimer said, pointing out that Democrats gained a seat in last month’s elections.
His prescription for his party: “If you go out there and you interact with people on an everyday basis, you show them that you care, you talk to them, you engage with them, you can win elections. And I believe that the more the Democrats are grassroots oriented, that we listen and we talk to people, we’ll do better in 2026 than in 2024. And ’24 was a slight improvement over ’22. And I think there’s a chance to win the House back.”
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: George Latimer talks Westchester NY exec record, new House seat in DC