Laura Curran

Nassau County Executive

This former two-term county legislator and ex-Baldwin school board president proved she had the power to make  history when she shattered the highest glass ceiling in Long Island politics to become the first woman to be elected county executive in local history. She’s also only the third Democrat to win to county’s top job in nearly a century of the title’s existence. Given her Republican predecessor, Ed Mangano, was fighting federal corruption charges at the time Laura Curran took his job, she had a clear mandate to enact ethics reform in county government. She made quick work of banning aides from holding political party positions or donating to her re-election campaign. Because as anyone with even a cursory understanding of ethics knows, what matters is not just the avoidance of conflicts of interest, but also the appearance of conflicts of interest, regardless of whether one actually exists. For an example of why that counts, look no further than Mangano’s former chief deputy and Hicksville Republican Club president, Rob Walker, who pleaded not guilty to lying to federal investigators probing Walker’s fundraising for Mangano. While there will be more work to do on the ethics front, Curran also has her work cut out for her reforming Nassau’s troubled property tax assessment system, a leading contributor to cash-strapped county’s perennial budget gaps. While the voters gave her the power to restore trust in government, we’ll leave it to the Wall Street rating agencies to decide if she has the power to properly balance the county’s checkbook.