Inside Rich Schaffer’s ‘hardball’ campaign to keep power in Suffolk County

Longtime Suffolk County Democratic Party Chair Rich Schaffer is a Long Island power broker and dealmaker who has kept a solid grasp on power for over two decades. And it seems like he’s pulling out all the stops in an attempt to fend off his first-ever challenge – including allegedly offering money to one committee member to ensure they show up for the vote and allegedly pressuring county Board of Elections patronage employees to vote for him on Sept. 22, according to text messages and videos shared with City & State. And now, one of Schaffer’s former loyalists has vowed to deliver her important weighted votes to his opponent, Kathryn Casey Quigley, and is calling on Schaffer to resign.

Ken Colón, a former candidate for Islip town supervisor who is currently on the county party payroll as a campaign manager for a congressional candidate, shared a text message with City & State he received from Schaffer on Sept. 9. City & State verified that the number of the sender matches Schaffer’s cellphone, which he shares publicly on the town of Babylon website. 

“Is your father coming to (the) convention and supporting me?” Schaffer asked over text message, referring to the Sept. 22 leadership vote. Colón responded that his father, a member of the county committee and a retired police officer, had recently started working full-time security again. “Can we pay him to miss work?” Schaffer replied.

Several days after receiving the text message, Colón told City & State he received a call from Schaffer, who once again sought to ensure the elder Colón’s attendance and vote. “I’m prepared to do literally anything,” Colón claimed Schaffer said.

But Colón isn’t the only one who said they felt pressure from Schaffer. Leigh-Ann Barde, chair of the town of Islip Democratic Committee and a former staunch supporter of Schaffer, shared a video with City & State taken in late August by her husband, Waquel Romain, while at work at the Suffolk County Board of Elections. In the video, Democratic Board of Elections Commissioner John Alberts can be heard addressing Barde’s husband and three other employees – who are also county committee members – about the upcoming committee leadership vote. “It’s imperative you are all there in the flesh ... to vote for Rich to keep him chairman so you still have jobs,” said a voice Barde said belongs to Alberts.

Voting against the boss – or failing to show – could have consequences. Board of Elections employees are explicitly partisan hires who work at the pleasure of their party’s commissioner and other party leaders. Good-government reformers have long criticized the setup as the last vestiges of old-school political machine patronage systems. 

But Barde now says it’s her belief Schaffer plans to direct Alberts to fire her husband and brother-in-law – another Board of Elections employee – anyway, as well as force her out as the Islip Democratic Party leader. Schaffer didn’t say that directly, Barde said, but she got the message when she received a call from him last week. Barde said Schaffertold her the vote where she hopes to be reelected to lead the Islip Town Democratic Party chair would have to be delayed, and instead need to take place roughly a month after the initial countywide committee vote in order to adhere to party rules.

Except both of Barde’s other elections took place on the same day as Schaffer’s without issue. A copy of the bylaws dated September 2020 shared with City & State say that town committee elections must take place “within twenty (20) to thirty (30) days after the biennial County Committee organization meeting.” The timeline allegedly suggested by Schaffer would provide enough time for new members appointed by and loyal to him to vote her out, according to Barde. Knowing this, Schaffer’s call served as confirmation for Barde that Schaffer hoped to push her out and fire her family members for a perceived lack of loyalty.

In response to a detailed list of questions from City & State, Bryan Sokolowski, political director of the Suffolk County Democratic Committee, denied the allegations of wrongdoing by Schaffer without addressing any of the specifics. He countered it was actually Quigley supporters who made “threatening online comments,” pointing to screenshots of two Facebook posts from the group Democrats for Brookhaven, including one promising to unseat “motherfuckers” who either supported Schaffer or remained neutral.

“When Quigley supporters are threatening retribution, including a ‘f**kfest the likes of which y’all never seen’ that is why John Alberts and others are afraid for their jobs, not because of anything Chairman Schaffer has ever said or done,” Sokolowski said in a statement, referring in part to one of the Facebook posts. “At the same time, they have supporters threatening Democratic elected officials and workers, the Quigley camp is falsely reporting facts and desperately trying to malign Rich Schaffer. The allegations that Mr. Schaffer is bribing and threatening members of his committee are pathetic and ridiculous.”

As recently as last week, news articles had quoted Barde as a tried-and-true Schaffer supporter. Now, she tells City & State that she and her husband will cast their influential weighted votes for Casey Quigley, as will other family members and friends on the Suffolk County Democratic Committee.

In an unusual move, the county legislature last week voted – ahead of the reorganization meeting – to reconfirm both Alberts and his Republican counterpart on the county Board of Elections months earlier than usual, ahead of their terms expiring at the end of the year. Garrett Petersen, the deputy chair of the Islip Democratic Party and a Casey Quigley supporter, told City & State that Schaffer told him in a Sept. 2 phone call that he was pushing for an early vote “just in case” he lost the leadership vote. The reconfirmation protects Alberts from being replaced for the next several years.

At the time Barde’s husband took the video, Alberts’ continued service was not yet guaranteed. That meant that, in the event of a new chair being elected – in this case, Casey Quigley – that person would have had the ability to recommend a new commissioner. In theory, that new commissioner could have fired patronage employees.

Casey Quigley denied she would have fired any patronage employees hired under Schaffer, including Barde’s family. “I’ve been on the record from the beginning of my campaign that I don’t approve of the way that patronage employees are used as pawns, and in politics, and that my goal would be to let them to continue to do their jobs as long as they are doing their jobs as they’re intended to be done in accordance with their organization’s policies and procedures and job descriptions and bosses,” she told City & State. Casey Quigley added she is “really concerned” and called the allegations about Schaffer and county Democratic officials and that “this is not who we are as a party.”

The specific legality of the monetary offer to Colón’s father is murky – election law prevents vote-buying in government-run elections, but the committee vote is governed by party rules. And the partisan structure of the Board of Elections means political hires could get legally fired. But good-government advocates still criticized the alleged actions of Schaffer and Alberts. 

“The primary and most important job qualification is loyalty and willingness to follow orders, whether they are legal or not, and that is what is wrong with this system,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. 

“This is what infuriates voters,” Lerner said of such alleged behavior. “And it feeds the kind of deliberate fearmongering propaganda we are seeing coming from the Trump administration.”

Larry Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said the allegations against Schaffer at the very least show a level of vulnerability for the party boss that he’s never seen. “Regardless of the veracity of the charges, clearly Schaffer is really, really worried for the first time in his leadership life, and that’s fairly remarkable for somebody who has been in such secure control for so long,” Levy said. “At minimum, this is hardball politics at its hardest.”

The allegations against Schaffer and those aligned with him also come in the wake of criticism over the decision of former Democratic county clerk candidate Anthony Portesy to drop his campaign. City & State previously reported that Schaffer pressured both Portesy and county comptroller candidate Jon Estreich to accept nominations to judgeships in order to vacate their place on the ballot and clear the way for Republicans running. Estreich did not accept the nomination and remained on the ballot.

Shortly before the publication of this article, Barde released a public statement calling on Schaffer to resign, mentioning the fear about her family’s future employment at the Board of Elections, allegations of financial deals for votes and the alleged deal to get Portesy off the ballot. She said the incident with Portesy “broke (her) heart and cracked (her) faith.”

“All of this is not just inappropriate methods of running our party,” Barde wrote in the statement posted to Facebook. “It’s direct harm to the voters, to the committee members, to the candidates and elected officials who all need to be able to trust the party.”

Derek Stein, fellow Islip native and staffer for County Legislator Greg Doroski, also posted a video on social media Monday morning laying out the allegations against Schaffer and his supporters. In the video, Stein claimed that the state Attorney General’s Office and the FBI are looking into the allegations. Colón confirmed to City & State that he had been contacted by investigators. 

A spokesperson for Attorney General Letitia James’ office confirmed it has received and is reviewing complaints regarding the Suffolk County Democratic Committee. A spokesperson for the FBI did not immediately return a request for comment. 

County committee members are set to meet at the Huntington Hilton Tuesday evening to decide who will lead their party for the next two years.