Paul King Speaks at Rockaway Neighbors Candidates Forum
A few days ahead of early voting beginning, candidates are getting down to the wire to plead their case for why voters should elect them. On Monday, October 22, Rockaway Neighbors Helping Neighbors (RNHN), a group led by the Tenant Association presidents and NAACP members from Far Rockaway, held an online candidates’ forum for the congressional candidates for District 5 to speak about issues. As incumbent Congressman Gregory Meeks did not participate, republican challenger Paul King was asked questions about what he stands for.
Early voting begins on Saturday, October 26, for New York, in which voters will have several days to head to the voting booth and cast their ballots early, if they’re unable to do so on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5. With president, congress, state assembly, state senate, judges and several state proposals on the ballot, this election is anticipated to be a big one.
Monday’s RNHN forum was moderated by Melissa Morris, who asked roughly 20 questions for Paul King. Ahead of questions, she said, “Unfortunately Congressman Gregory Meeks could not meet with us. He declined to partake.” With that said, the spotlight was put on King for over an hour.
“I’m a Rockaway neighbor who wants to be your congressman,” King said when asked about himself, adding that he’s a longtime civic leader, a member of Community Board 14, a former board member of Rockaway Little League and has 30 years’ experience as head of a consulting company. His motivation for running for office is the American Dream. “This is supposed to be the land of opportunity for everybody, and we all know it’s not working equally. There are places like Far Rockaway where people, generation after generation, are stuck behind. This is systemic failure. I want to get in there and look as what’s broken so that it is really fair for everyone across southern Queens and so your families have a fair chance to live their best life,” he said.
Asked about his first job, King said he worked at Waldbaums, and he still does the grocery shopping for his family. “That’s why I know prices are terrible,” he said. Asked about something that was a struggle in his life, King spoke of a trying time from 1999 to 2002, in which he got divorced and had two daughters at the time, while he was trying to start his company. Then, the mother of his children died on 9/11, leaving him as a single parent and being challenged with a custody battle from extended family members.
A question came up on whether its beneficial for a legislator to have previous experience in government, and King said, “I think it’s useful to have some experience in understanding the processes of government,” which he said he has through his work as a consultant, working with government agencies. He added that an issue with many congress members is that they often vote along with the party rather than coming across the aisle to solve problems, which is less effective. “They’re effective in bringing a certain amount of money home but they don’t know how to improve our lives. That’s the measure I want to be held accountable for. Do I improve your life? Not, can I put out a press release,” he said.
Asked about the core responsibilities of someone in congressional office, King said it’s important to show up to vote on legislation. “And hopefully, representing. The House of Representatives should be representing the people, not just representing the party. I’m going to vote for the people here,” he said. He added that it’s important for representatives to also pass their own legislation. “Most congresspeople don’t have a lot of things passed. In 26 years as congressman, Meeks has had seven bills he’s sponsored, and if you take out the ones renaming things like post offices and highways, it comes down to one bill that affects the lives of people, something dealing with finance and banking. It was a good bill, but you need to be doing more to fix the system,” King said.
On policies he’s passionate about, King said “the biggest problem that’s affecting everyone in southeast Queens is the cost of living. It was painful to watch the irresponsible spending that went on when Biden took over that we knew would drive up inflation. We went from 1.9% to 9.1% inflation and that’s nuts. This hurts regular people, if you have a family, if you’re working paycheck to paycheck, which is a lot of people in Queens.” He also said he’s passionate about the American Dream, fixing the border so there aren’t migrant camps in the district, improving schools, creating better access to jobs and creating more banks in Rockaway to help people with things like buying homes and starting businesses.
Asked about the qualities he has that would make him a successful office holder, King said he’s told that he’s humble, and he doesn’t need credit for things, yet he “can take a punch.” “I’m nonplussed by bad circumstances,” he said, adding that as a republican who won’t always fall in line with the party, he’ll be challenged by both sides in Congress.
On protecting voter rights, King spoke about the importance of everyone having fair access to the ballot. Asked if he believes in supporting civil rights for all people, regardless of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, LGBTQ status, etc., King simply said, “Of course, I believe in equal protection under the law.”
Asked about women’s rights to their body, King said, “Each of us should be able to make health decisions, style decisions, even adults who want to have gender operations, those are all personal choices adults should be able to make. I think one thing that goes missing in the abortion rights debate is yes, a woman needs to be able to make decisions about her body, but that conflicts with when does a baby get a right to life, and that’s why this has been so difficult because you have two fundamental rights crashing into each other.”
Asked about rights for immigrants, King said there’s a difference between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants, acknowledging that almost every American comes from immigrants, and they’ve had a positive impact on America. However, he said those who aren’t citizens shouldn’t be able to vote, and that with roughly six million illegal immigrants entering the country over the last four years, it has caused more issues. “From human trafficking to the impact on citizens of New York, it’s caused all sorts of damage and the pain trickles down to people who are working class folks in southeast Queens who are competing for homes, resources and jobs. It hurts them,” King said.
On the privatization of public housing, King said, “I am greatly concerned.” He expressed that NYCHA needs many improvements but has concerns about housing being privatized after seeing many private developers taking advantage of Rockaway. On flooding issues, King said there needs to be more urgency to address quick things such as adding bulkheads to the bayside, and that he would pester the Army Corps to speed up their timeline on bigger solutions. On how he would organize his office, King said he would hire people with more experience in things like education and transportation, prioritizing locals who know the peninsula, and that his office would be open regularly to hear constituent concerns, so that his office can help address the problems at home.
Asked about Proposition 1, the Equal Rights Amendment, King said, “I tell people it is more important to vote no on Prop 1, than yes on Paul King,” explaining that it could open a pandora’s box of lawsuits and could lead to things like biological men being able to play on women’s sport teams. He cited his full Op-Ed on the matter in The Wave last week.