Jon Kaiman spent a decade running North Hempstead, survived a bruising primary loss to Tom Suozzi in 2016, and still ended up as the congressman’s chief of staff. Long Island politics has always had a long memory. Sometimes that works out.
Suozzi, a Democrat representing parts of Nassau County and Queens, announced Monday that he’s bringing Kaiman on as chief of staff and naming Matt Gelman, a Capitol Hill veteran with ties to some of the most powerful House leaders of the past three decades, as deputy chief of staff.
The two hires give Suozzi a senior team with unusually deep roots on both ends of the political operation. Kaiman knows Nassau County’s local machinery cold. Gelman knows how Congress moves.
Kaiman’s resume is hard to match in local government circles. He served as North Hempstead town supervisor for ten years, sat as a Nassau County District Court judge, worked as deputy Suffolk County executive, and chaired the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority. He also served as a special adviser to the New York governor on Superstorm Sandy recovery and, most recently, led the state’s Division of Tax Appeals and Tax Appeals Tribunal. He holds a law degree from Hofstra University and a master’s in public administration from Harvard University.
Suozzi called him “a policy wonk” and “a trusted leader with a proven track record of delivering for our community.”
The history between the two men is complicated and, given Long Island’s small political world, probably unavoidable. When Suozzi was Nassau County executive and Kaiman was running North Hempstead, they worked together routinely on local coordination deals, including a transfer of county parkland to the town and an agreement under which North Hempstead took over certain roads to speed up paving and maintenance. Practical stuff. The kind of unglamorous work that actually affects residents.
Then things got competitive. Kaiman challenged Suozzi for Congress in the 2016 Democratic primary and lost. He ran again in 2022, finishing behind Robert Zimmerman, who then lost to former Rep. George Santos. In that 2022 race, according to Long Island Press, Suozzi backed former Nassau County legislator Josh Lafazan rather than Kaiman.
None of that, apparently, is disqualifying.
“Tom Suozzi and I have traveled a long road together as allies, rivals and friends,” Kaiman said. “I am looking forward to joining with him on this journey.”
Suozzi put it plainly too. “I have known Jon Kaiman as a friend and colleague for decades,” he said in a statement. “He knows our district inside and out and shares my philosophy of working with anyone of goodwill, Democrat or Republican, to get things done.”
That framing matters. Suozzi has positioned himself as one of the few House members willing to cut cross-aisle deals at a moment when bipartisan cooperation in Washington has become genuinely rare. Bringing in a chief of staff with a record of pragmatic local governance, and a deputy with deep ties to House Democratic leadership, fits that brand.
Gelman’s background is the kind that opens doors on the Hill. He served as senior adviser to House Majority Whip James Clyburn, senior floor assistant to former House Majority and Minority Whip David Bonior, and special assistant to former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt. Those are relationships built in the rooms where legislative priorities actually get set. For more on how House whip operations work, the Congressional Research Service publishes detailed breakdowns of House floor and leadership procedures.
After his years in Democratic leadership circles, Gelman spent 22 years at Microsoft leading the company’s congressional affairs team. That stretch gave him a different kind of fluency, the kind that comes from lobbying both sides of the aisle for a major corporation rather than working inside a single party’s operation. Gelman will now run Suozzi’s Washington office and oversee the legislative team.
“Matt Gelman is one of the most seasoned professionals in Washington,” Suozzi said. “His wealth of experience will be a huge asset to my team.”
Long Island’s congressional delegation has seen significant turnover since Santos’s 2022 upset, and Suozzi’s own return to Congress after a failed 2022 gubernatorial bid was anything but easy. He won a February 2024 special election to reclaim the seat Santos had vacated amid scandal, then held it again in November’s general. Building a stable senior staff is overdue. For voters in Nassau County and Queens who want to track how Suozzi’s office performs on federal priorities affecting the district, the House of Representatives official website lists all active legislation and member offices. With Kaiman running day-to-day operations and Gelman managing the legislative calendar, Suozzi now has two experienced hands in place to help him make good on that stability.