What a Leader Does

Rich Schaffer, who will have been leader of the Democratic Party in Suffolk County for 25 years in September, is not shaken by Republican gains in recent times, nationally and in Suffolk.

“We’ve been there before over the years I’ve been county chair,” Schaffer was saying. “We saw this when young [George W.] Bush was president. But a lot of times, the party in power makes mistakes, upsetting people. And I think with Trump, we are in a whole different universe.

“There’s lots of chaos,” he continued in a recent interview. “His administration is hell-bent at going after Social Security and other programs middle-class Suffolk County residents want and deserve from government.”

The administration of President Donald Trump has an “extreme agenda” in a huge number of ways, said Schaffer, particularly its assault on the “check-and-balance process that the Constitution lays out. We can’t undo by a power grab the democratic experiment that was created in Philadelphia,” he said, referring to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that created the governmental system for the new nation.

“As this sinks in,” he said, “the shine will wear off” of Trump’s support.

Schaffer is more than a longtime Suffolk County political leader. He has served nine terms as Babylon Town supervisor and still is town supervisor. Earlier, between 1988 and 1992, he was a member of the Suffolk County Legislature. He has long been chairperson of the Suffolk County Supervisors Association.

He has breathed politics and government for decades and takes a very personal approach. For example, he lists his cellphone number on the Town of Babylon government website for constituents to call. How many officials do that?

Schaffer began in politics in Suffolk County in 1974, when he was 11 years old. Tom Downey, the older brother of Schaffer’s friend Jeffrey Downey, was running for Congress, and Schaffer distributed campaign literature for Downey.

Democrat Downey, regarding early political starts, was elected a Suffolk County legislator at 22. In 1974, at 25, he was elected to Congress, becoming the youngest member of the House of Representatives that term. He was reelected to eight succeeding terms.

Schaffer, now 61, was sworn into his first term as supervisor of Babylon Town in 1992 at 29, becoming the youngest person in the 20th century to be its top town official. He has been supervisor for 22 years, longer than anyone in Town of Babylon history.

In February, announcing his reelection bid for supervisor for what would be his 10th term, Schaffer, before a gathering of “several hundred supporters,” as the Babylon Herald Beacon reported, “emphasized his people-first approach to governance.”

“That’s the way we should govern,” he was quoted as saying. “Look around this room, you’ll see people from not only the Democratic but Conservative, Republican and independent parties as well. That’s because here in the Town of Babylon, we talk to one another and work together for our constituents.”

Through his years in government, Schaffer has emphasized bipartisan action. While a county legislator, he became close with Republican Ed Romaine of Center Moriches and Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor, at that time a Republican, among other GOPers on the legislature. He said of Thiele, now retired after 29 years in the State Assembly, “We became friends.”

Of Romaine, now as county executive the top Suffolk County government official, he said, “I’ve had more cooperation from Ed in one year than I’ve had with county executives for 20 years,” said Schaffer. He says Romaine is foremost “just a decent person.”

Schaffer further mentioned in the interview, “Tonight I’m having dinner with Angie Carpenter.” Carpenter is the supervisor of neighboring Islip Town, a Republican, and also a former member of the County Legislature.

A native of North Babylon, Schaffer graduated as a political science major from the State University of New York at Albany where he was president of the student association. Then, back home, he attended and graduated from Brooklyn Law School.

As for the coming 2025 election in Suffolk, he thinks “all our incumbents” on the Suffolk County Legislature “are safe.” There are six Democrats currently on the 18-member panel. He is excited about Greg Doroski of Mattituck, a four-year member of the Southold Town Board, who has announced his candidacy in the legislature’s 1st District.

Doroski, who has said his campaign will include focusing on protecting the underground water table on which Suffolk County depends, affordable housing and preserving farmland and open space, is also a brewer, now at the Riverhead Brew House. “Who doesn’t like the brewmaster?” laughed Schaffer.

Looking ahead to the 2026 election in Suffolk, he is optimistic that a Democrat can win in the 1st Congressional District over incumbent Republican Nick LaLota, who lives in Amityville (in Babylon Town). And “we will help protect,” he said, Democratic incumbent Tom Suozzi of Great Neck whose 3rd Congressional District includes a part of Huntington.

At the reelection announcement event, the Babylon Herald Beacon reported that Nancy Jones, “a Babylon resident, shared her support” saying: “Rich is amazing: He is a man of his word. If anyone goes to him with an issue or problem, it gets resolved. If it’s not in his jurisdiction, he reaches out to make sure your concern is taken care of. He doesn’t say: ‘It’s not my job.’”

I know Babylon well, having started as a reporter in Suffolk County in 1962 at the Babylon Town Leader, which preceded the Babylon Herald Beacon. It’s a diverse town, and Schaffer is active in promoting diversity. At the reelection announcement event, Legislator Jason Richberg of West Babylon, the legislature’s Democratic minority leader, an African American man, said: “Rich has always made sure that we give more opportunities to people of color, people of different cultures and faiths, women, and to give everyone a second chance, and in some cases, a third.

“He makes sure things get done. That is what a leader does.”