Former State Senator announces bid for Congress

BY RIKKI MASSAND

On Monday August 7 former New York State Sen. James Gaughran, who represented Syosset and Woodbury in the state’s 5th senatorial district from 2019 through 2022, launched a bid to represent the 1st Congressional district of New York in the United States Congress.

The election for the 1st district seat will take place in November of 2024. Gaughran, a Huntington native and Democrat, will be challenging incumbent Nick LaLota for a chance to represent Long Island in Washington D.C., for a potential term beginning in January 2025.

The decision former Sen. Gaughran made last year to not seek re-election to the State Senate position was noted in the announcement of his candidacy for Congress presented this week. According to his campaign press release, “In 2022 Jim declined to run as the Special Master’s redistricting process eliminated any viable seat in the communities he (Gaughran) has historically represented.”

In his official announcement from May 31, 2022 about his decision to not seek another term in the State Senate Gaughran noted the “electoral realities” of his home district, as drawn by the Special Master for the state.

In spring 2022, Gaughran said “I’m proud of everything the Democratic Conference has accomplished under

Majority Leader Andrea StewartCousins’ leadership in just two terms, and I am confident that they will hold that majority moving forward. After speaking with my family, friends, and colleagues, I look forward to serving my district, my constituents, and my state for the rest of my term.”

Gaughran’s representation of Syosset and Woodbury in the NYS Senate continued over four years, as he was elected in fall 2018 and re-elected in 2020. In early 2019, one of Gaughran’s first initiatives in northeastern Nassau County was the opening of his district office near Syosset’s downtown shopping and dining area and LIRR station, at 485 Underhill Boulevard.

In his time working out of the fully-staffed Syosset location, Sen. Gaughran attended community-building events including the annual Street Fair and the Holiday Spectacular along Syosset’s Jackson Avenue. He also attended grand openings and ribbon cutting events at local Syosset and Woodbury businesses, as well as the annual Installation Dinner of the Syosset Woodbury Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, held in January of 2020 at Lisbon Cafe restaurant in Jericho.

At 26 years old, in 1983 former Sen. Gaughran was elected to serve on the Huntington Town Board, becoming the youngest councilman in the history of Huntington. He left service in the New York State Senate last year after turn-