Norman’s Likely Successor Eager for Dialogue on Term Limits
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The likely successor to the convicted felon Clarence Norman Jr. as the assemblyman for the 43rd District in Brooklyn is a self-styled reformer who says that term limits on Albany lawmakers should be discussed.
On Sunday, Karim Camara, a 34-year-old Baptist clergyman, officially became the Democratic nominee for the November 8 special election called after Norman was convicted of soliciting illegal campaign contributions. Yesterday, in a breakfast interview with The New York Sun, Rev. Camara said he is no solider for the county’s political machine.
Headlines this week called him “Norman’s Pal.” But despite preaching every other Sunday at the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights, where Norman’s father is head pastor, and once working for Norman as a community liaison, Rev. Camara said he has not real personal relationship with either of the Normans and has his own ideas for the office.
“We’re not friends, we’re not confidants, we’re just not,” he said of the younger Norman, after taking a sip of a cherry-lime rickey.
Rev. Camara said that while he is running on the Democratic Party line, which all but guarantees he will be the victor on Election Day, he considers himself an independent-minded, insurgent candidate.
“I don’t expect to retire from the assembly,” he said. “I don’t expect to be there for 20 years … I don’t think that elected office should be one position for me to have for the rest of my working life.”
When asked whether he supported term limits for state office, he said he hadn’t yet thought through the issue enough, but that it should be discussed.
The reverend’s nomination takes just one of the three vacancies resulting from Norman’s felony conviction off the table. Today the party’s executive committee will gather at the famed Park Plaza diner on Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn to select a new county boss. Assemblyman Vito Lopez of Bushwick is expected to win that prize, which is considered the golden egg of Brooklyn politics. The group will also pick a district leader successor for Norman.
For his part, Rev. Camara, who graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana and received a master’s degree from the New York Theological Seminary, has an unruffled appearance and a personable manner. Although he had considered running for public office in the past, he said he was conflicted when this opportunity arose.
Married for only a few weeks, Rev. Camara and his wife, an attorney, were on their way to Carmine’s in Midtown Manhattan for a family-style Italian meal the night Norman was convicted. A politically plugged-in friend called to ask whether Rev. Camara would be interested in running for the Assembly seat that was stripped from the former party boss after 23 years.
The next morning he left the house thinking he would pass. But a day later he ran into state Senator Carl Andrews, one of Norman’s closest allies, outside a popular diner in Crown Heights, and started to rethink it. A day later he invited a small group of family and friends to his Park Place apartment for pizza and more conversation. By the end of the week, he had decided to go for it.
Many have criticized the county committee that unanimously voted for Rev. Camara, a virtual unknown in political circles outside his immediate neighborhood, for failing to solicit community input when making its decision. A community activist who also wanted the nomination, Geoffrey Davis, the brother of slain City Council Member James Davis, called the process “disgusting” and described it as “mafia-style.” And, the Working Families Party opted not to endorse a candidate because of what it deemed a “closed-door process that lacked community input.”
Rev. Camara, who now works for the Cush Campus Schools in Brooklyn as a fund-raiser, said the county committee followed the letter of the law, but that the law for selecting candidates to run in general election was worth reviewing.
For now, he is concentrating on introducing himself to voters. He has no plans to open a campaign office, but he has three fund-raisers scheduled between now and Election Day.
He had his brother, a graphic designer, create a campaign flier, which he hopes to have 50,000 copies of by the end of the week. Then he’ll start daily visits to subway stops, housing projects, and community meetings.
“It’s like a business,” he said. “The people of this district are going to be my customers.” Businesses that fail to find out what their customers need, he said, often flop.
Yesterday, Mr. Lopez, the front-runner for the party boss job, said he had commitments from 30 district leaders, far more than the 21-person majority he needs to win the job. Even with that support, some fear that he won’t do much to clean up the party.
But Assemblywoman Annette Robinson said she planned to throw her hat in the ring, and a group of Brooklyn elected officials plan to push to keep the interim head of the party, Freddie Hamilton, on for another few months so that the party can clean house before rushing to install a new permanent leader.