Politics

Bruce Blakeman’s solar phase

Published

4 months ago

May 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republican Bruce Blakeman created Sustainable Technology LLC in 2017, pitching a federal contract to build a border wall of solar panels to President Donald Trump.

DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 44

TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN: Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has made questioning the state’s commitment to green energy a key plank of his gubernatorial platform.

Not so long ago, he had an entirely different focus. Back in 2017, the Republican served as a green energy company executive who was seeking a multibillion dollar federal contract to build a border wall comprised of solar panels.

“The best thing about it is we could sell the energy to Mexico,” Blakeman said at the time during an appearance on Fox News. “So in fact, they would be paying for the wall. It’s a win, win, win.”

Blakeman created Sustainable Technology LLC soon after President Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration and quickly began promoting the idea of having the government pay a private company to build the promised wall along the Mexican border.

His pitch? The months-old company would be the perfect vehicle to manage the massive construction project thanks to its unique steel mesh design: “You can see through it,” Blakeman said of his 30-foot tall wall. “There’s no graffiti that can be put on it.”

The plan also involved the feds guaranteeing the bonds needed to fund Blakeman’s barrier building. The company, his thinking went, would then sell around $120 million of energy annually and that would cover “between a third and a half of the price.”

Trump wound up briefly flirting with the idea of a solar wall. “The rumor is, he saw us on [Fox News] and he saw our design and he started talking about it as a viable idea. I don’t know that to be a fact, but that is the rumor,” Blakeman said on Fox Business.

“Solar wall, panels, beautiful,” Trump said at a rally 10 days later. “Pretty good imagination, right? My idea,” he said while pointing to himself.

These days, Blakeman is a much less aggressive proponent of solar power — at least in the state he’s hoping to govern.

“Our carbon footprint is miniscule compared to the rest of the world, here in New York state,” he said in Albany last week. “When you look at the cost-benefit analysis, you don’t get the return from green energy.”

Long Island environmentalists say it’s “bizarre” to hear Blakeman’s attacks on solar power after a tenure in town and county government when he was largely silent on the issue.

“There are solar panels all across the county he serves,” Citizens Campaign for the Environment’s Adrienne Esposito said. “Thirty years ago, we were working with groups across Long Island to get 1,000 homes to have solar roofs. Today, it’s like one out of every 10 homes has solar panels. So its success is growing and it’s been widely embraced by members of the public and businesses.”

In a visit to Schoharie County last month, Blakeman criticized state efforts to install solar panels in rural neighborhoods.

“Here in New York, it doesn’t make any sense,” he said, pointing to the fact that the panels are occasionally covered in snow. “This is a scam.”

Still, he doesn’t oppose it everywhere — and specifically pointed to a “beautiful state” on the border.

“I’m a big proponent of solar energy. I think it’s great in Arizona,” Blakeman said in Schoharie. “When you have 350 days a year of sunshine and the mean average temperature’s about 80 degrees all year long, yeah, it makes sense there.” — Bill Mahoney

From the Capitol

New York lawmakers are weighing a new statewide tax in the still-unfinished state budget.

TAXING TIMES: New York lawmakers are weighing a statewide tax on cash real estate purchases, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s office confirmed.

It’s not clear how the tax would be structured or what dollar amount would trigger it. The discussion is being held as state officials are poised to grant a similar tax for New York City.

The proposal was panned by the Real Estate Board of New York.

“New Yorkers are already the most heavily taxed residents in the country, and the City’s budget issues will not be solved by more taxes,” said the group’s president, James Whelan. “On the back of $500 million in a new second-home tax, putting even more costs on home buyers and sellers will further discourage transactions and threaten existing revenue collected by the State, City, and MTA.”

STICKER SHOCK: Democratic socialist congressional candidate Chuck Park seems to be a fan of the work of someone else running for Congress: upstate GOP contender Anthony Constantino.

Park, the lefty challenger for Rep. Grace Meng’s Queens seat, has spent $3,180 — across 15 disbursements — on campaign materials from Sticker Mule, the sprawling sticker and printing business owned by Constantino. The irreverent Republican is locked in his own primary battle with Assemblymember Robert Smullen for Rep. Elise Stefanik’s seat.

Constantino is a rapper, former boxer and massive pro-Trump sign owner who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump.

When Playbook asked Park if he had a comment on his campaign’s Sticker Mule spending habits, he attacked his opponent and the support she receives from a pro-Israel PAC.

“My opponent is taking hundreds of thousands in donations from AIPAC and weapons makers, but we can talk about where I buy stickers for volunteers,” Park said. “I’d be happy to compare my campaign’s finances with Rep. Meng’s at a debate.”

Meng’s campaign declined to respond to Park’s attack.

Financial records related to Park’s run for Congress — or lack thereof — also made headlines today for a different reason. City & State reported this morning that Park is four months late on filing his personal financial disclosure form. — Jason Beeferman

PIED-A-RETURN: Democratic state lawmakers aren’t finished discussing an annual surcharge on luxury second homes outside of New York City.

The statewide proposal, initially championed by Albany state Sen. Pat Fahy, was excised from state budget talks, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins told reporters this week.

But Assembly Democrats were told recently in a closed-door meeting that the matter may resurface next year after it’s reviewed by state tax officials, according to three people with direct knowledge of the conversation.

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Jack Schlossberg's campaign has been rife with high turnover.

SLEEPY SCHLOSSBERG: Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg spent the day defending himself after The New York Times published a deep dive into his campaign’s internal operations.

The paper reported that Schlossberg’s campaign has experienced extremely high turnover — something we’ve covered at length in this newsletter — and that Schlossberg opted to take a nap or not show up during key campaign calls, the Times reported.

Schlossberg also pulled out of a Working Families Party candidate interview in January and at least one candidate debate.

In response to the piece, Schlossberg fired off posts on X in an apparent attempt to defend himself. In one, he posted a photo of himself where he appears to be sleeping. “Needed a quick nap !!” he said.

Schlossberg went on CNN today too, telling the network’s host Dana Bash: “Once you’re declared the frontrunner, and early voting starts in less than a month, everyone’s got something to say,” he said. “People are trying to figure out how our campaign has been so successful. — Jason Beeferman

IN OTHER NEWS

— ‘BETTER WHEN DEAD’: Congressional candidate Alex Bores’ father wished death on Zionists and justified the bombing of a child in a screed of online posts. (Jewish Insider)

— GUESSING GAME: Inconsistent market valuations for luxury New York City homes are muddying efforts to determine which properties will be targeted under Hochul’s proposed second-homes tax. (The New York Times)

— BIG PRICETAG: Erie County is directing most of its $29 million surplus to a $21 million civil rights settlement, and the county attorney is waving off questions from lawmakers. (Buffalo News)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

Politics

Gavin Newsom’s first 2028 test: This fall, in Nevada

Published

1 day ago

September 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

LAS VEGAS — If California Gov. Gavin Newsom runs for president in 2028, next-door Nevada will be a crucial test. This fall’s governor’s race is offering a preview.

As GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo runs for reelection, he’s trying to pin high Nevada fuel prices — a majority of which is imported from California — on “Gavin Newsom’s energy policies.” He lambasts California as too expensive and too regulated. And he’s hammering his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Aaron Ford, for accepting Newsom’s endorsement, betting that it will turn off Nevada swing voters.

“The contrast is simple: I’m fighting Gavin Newsom’s agenda and Aaron Ford is trying to import it into Nevada,” Lombardo said in a statement to Blue Light News.

This could be a test run for 2028, when Newsom may call upon Nevadans — one-fifth of whom were born in California — to deliver him a primary victory in the early-voting state, and possibly a presidential victory.

“They understand California costs more,” Donna West, chair of the Nevada Democratic Party’s senior caucus, said of Nevada’s California expats. “They also understand that California is the fourth-largest economy in the entire world, and that Gavin Newsom ran that as effectively as he possibly can.”

Newsom’s office declined to comment. A person close to the governor, granted anonymity to discuss the sentiment in his orbit, said they are “thrilled” Republicans are spending money to “plaster Newsom’s name across a key early state.”

“Republicans seem awfully concerned about an endorsement from someone who leads the 2028 Democratic field in Nevada by nearly 2-to-1,” the person said, pointing to a November 2025 Emerson poll of a hypothetical 2028 Democratic primary field.

Ford, for his part, shrugs off the attacks.

“Lombardo tries to cast blame elsewhere, but everyone knows that when the war started in February, that we saw our gas prices increase almost immediately,” Ford told Blue Light News after a recent town hall in Las Vegas. “People believe their own eyes, and they remember their experiences.”

The demonization of California is nothing new in Nevada politics: For years, Republicans have blasted their western neighbor as too expensive and too woke.

But the stakes are higher, and the connection more palpable, this year, as Newsom explores a presidential bid. He would likely need to perform very well in Nevada, now second on the Democratic calendar, to build early momentum toward the party nomination. And come November 2028, he’d need to fare well in Nevada again, this time among the state’s general electorate, a plurality of which are independents.

Newsom has stumped for Democrats across the country this cycle, and he blitzed through the South this week, including a swing through South Carolina, whose Democrats will vote first, right before Nevada, in 2028.

But Republicans are looking to weaponize Newsom’s Silver State swing in July, where Ford introduced him at a new Las Vegas field office as “the governor of the great state of California.”

“Our next president!” an audience member shouted, eliciting cheers.

The Lombardo-aligned Better Nevada PAC shared polling with Blue Light News in July showing Newsom’s favorability 20 points underwater in Nevada and losing a hypothetical 2028 head-to-head with Vice President JD Vance. Shortly thereafter, the PAC began an ad blitz tying Ford to the California governor.

Billboards touting Newsom’s endorsement of Ford, paid for by the PAC, now line highways across Nevada, and digital and streaming ads have run consistently since the visit. “Newsom and Ford: Shared vision. Shared values,” one ad says.

A person familiar with the PAC’s internal polling, granted anonymity to discuss private data, said it shows Newsom’s endorsement is now the second-most-known datapoint about the attorney general.

“Gavin Newsom is the singular most unpopular elected official in Nevada,” said Jeremy Hughes, a longtime Nevada GOP strategist running the Lombardo-aligned PAC. “Aaron Ford brought him into the state. … There’s no better way to help him out than to put up these signs and run ads, letting people know that he’s excited about being endorsed by Gavin Newsom.”

Republicans in the state have long blamed Californian expats for housing shortages and rising prices and connect their opponents to California liberals. A surge of ex-Californians leaving the state during the Covid-19 pandemic, some fleeing high taxes and cost of living, accelerated the trend.

Sam Brown, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in 2022, blasted the “energy policies of Gavin Newsom”; in 2018, GOP governor nominee Adam Laxalt lamented the “Californization” of Nevada, even as Californians bankrolled his campaign. During Lombardo’s first run for governor in 2022, he slammed incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak for taking his cues from Newsom: “Don’t let Steve Sisolak turn Nevada into California,” one post said. Republicans tied their opponents to Nancy Pelosi for decades.

Lombardo’s argument this time around is more focused. He notes that the vast majority of Nevada’s gasoline comes from California, and argues that California’s efforts to cut carbon emissions have caused fuel prices to soar. A gallon of gas in Nevada costs nearly $5, according to AAA, one of the highest prices in the nation.

“The policies coming from Gavin Newsom and California Democrats … don’t stop at their state line,” Lombardo said in a statement. “Nevada and other states import a significant portion of our fuel from California, so when Governor Newsom shuts down refineries and imposes regulations that reduce supply and increase costs, Nevada families feel the consequences at the pump.”

It’s a strategy that allows Lombardo — running in a difficult national environment for incumbent Republicans — to acknowledge voters’ economic pain without blaming President Donald Trump or his own party. Indeed, Lombardo shared an April column in the Nevada Independent that placed blame at the feet of both Newsom and Trump. (Lombardo, in his post, blamed only Newsom.)

Democrats don’t think voters will buy it. ‘“As far as gas prices, it’s so obviously increased since the war,” Rep. Dina Titus said. “People in Nevada aren’t stupid.”

Ford has his own millstone to saddle Lombardo with: the president. At a recent town hall in Las Vegas, he repeatedly blasted the “Lombardo-Trump economy” that is “making everything too expensive.”

“Voters absolutely tie the handling of the economy to Trump,” said Mike Noble, an independent Phoenix-based pollster who works in Nevada regularly. “Instead of blaming Trump, why not tie it to the boogeyman next door and blame California?”

Politics

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

Published

2 days ago

September 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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Politics

Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.

Published

4 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.

In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.

Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.

Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.

“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.

Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.

“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.

In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.

“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.

He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”

The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.

“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.

Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.

“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.

He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”

While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.

“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”

Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.

Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.

“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.

He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”