Shawna Black returns to lead; union nursing measure passes
Reporting and Analysis by Robert Lynch; January 9, 2026
You shouldn’t be faulted had you’d walked into the Tompkins County Legislature during its January 6 organizational meeting and didn’t know half the people casting votes. That’s because exactly 50 percent of those who represent us and sit twice monthly at that big, oval table downtown are brand new, the largest legislative freshman class in recent memory.
Due to redistricting enacted years ago, the Tompkins Legislature this term expands from 14 to 16 members. Six of those from last year’s Legislature, including 2025 Chair Dan Klein, retired. The remaining eight ran for new terms, and each won.
Whether new or returning, the newly-sworn members faced few political headwinds getting to where they got. Most incumbents ran unopposed. Another eight freshly-scrubbed faces got added to the Legislature in last November’s General Election, but rarely with opposition. Most challenges, if any, took place during scattered Democratic primaries last June.
Given the massive turnover, calling the new Legislature as green as it gets not only becomes a dead accurate assessment; it also understates the fact.
Nevertheless, while this incoming class may be inexperienced, it doesn’t lack spunk or shrink from attention. If last Tuesday’s performance represents what lies ahead, our newly-minted crop of legislators—all Democrats—will be brash, assertive, activist to the core, and not willing to sit for long on any back bench.
Take Adam Vinson, for example. He’s the one with the broccoli-style haircut. If you think he looks like a kid, you wouldn’t be far wrong. Vinson’s 22 and only graduated from Cornell last spring. Nobody ran against him in his campus-Collegetown district. Now he’s among the 16 who govern us.
And while during an interview last September. Vinson told The Cornell Daily Sun he’s passionate about the Green New Deal, his platform also called for extending the last call time for bars in Ithaca to 2 AM. “This is something that would be good for our economy, and it would be good for the student body,” Vinson told the paper. (Ignore, for the moment, that New York sets the legal drinking age at 21, and that there’s also a nasty little crime called DWI.)
True, at age 22, this story’s writer (Robert Lynch) also immersed himself in local politics. But it was merely as a lowly radio reporter covering what was then the Tompkins County Board of Representatives for WTKO, and before that, WVBR. Would I have then considered elevating myself to elective office? Not in your life. I knew I lacked the seasoning, perspective and maturity to serve as a legislator back then. Adam Vinson lacks it now. Yet no one will ever dare tell him that.
As their first order of business Tuesday, legislators elected Democrats Shawna Black as Chair and Deborah Dawson as Vice-Chair. Both have been on the Legislature for at least eight years. Black was Chair in 2022 and 2023. Dawson has played a key role in financial and Budget Committee matters during her tenure.
“You’ll notice a few changes around here,” Shawna Black remarked as she retook the gavel, taking note of the Legislature’s expanded membership and the table’s rearranged seating.
“I’d also like to acknowledge we have eight returning legislators and eight new legislators that represent a beautiful balance of fresh perspectives and experienced leadership,” Black added. “This will be a year of firsts, and I’m really excited about that.”
Dawson followed Black as she accepted second-in-command. “Of course, the Chair is the boss, and she is our outward face,” Dawson acknowledged, and then added, “I view my job this year as helping to shepherd and integrate our eight new legislators, and I’m very excited to work with each and every one of you.” Dawson continued, “I have rarely worked with a group that brought such a wealth and diversity of generational perspectives, education, and life experience, and I’m sure that our Legislature and our county will be much richer for all of that.”
Deborah Dawson would probably revile anyone’s calling her the new legislators’ “mother hen.” So let’s more discretely refer to her as the equivalent of a freshman orientation counselor at Donlon Hall.
And yes, Dawson has much work cut out for her during the months ahead. As prestigious a position as some may find their new roles to be, it’s clear that many newbies have neglected their homework.
Acronyms prove a special problem. Committee names often get abbreviated in legislative slang. “Budget, Capital and Personnel” becomes “BCP.” New arrivals were clueless that night. Greg Mezey mentioned “NYSAC.” “Hey, Greg, what is NYSAC?” someone called out from across the room. It’s the New York State Association of Counties, only the most prominent training and lobbying arm for county governments statewide. Most of our legislators attend NYSAC’s conferences twice yearly.
At the close of Tuesday’s reorganizational meeting, Chairperson Black announced the convening of a special legislative session seven days later. Its posted agenda lists the only business as a closed-door “Executive Session.” Most likely it’ll provide opportunity to acquaint the incoming crowd with all those secretive matters that never see the light of day for the rest of us. Any other purpose for an executive session would violate state law.
Shawna Black was elected legislative Chair on a 13-to-three party-line vote Tuesday. Minority Republicans nominated Lansing’s Mike Sigler and then all voted for him. Sigler now becomes the body’s senior serving member. Majority Democrats never see fit to recognize his seniority with any leadership.
If there was a moment of dramatic surprise during reorganization, it was about what never happened. Dryden Democrat Greg Mezey, last year’s legislative Vice-Chair and a rising star within the group, was never nominated for any top office. Whether Mezey had sought—but then lost—a leadership straw poll during the Democrats’ private caucus held prior to Tuesday’s meeting remains to be learned.
What others may dwell on—but I will not—is the substance of what consumed the bulk of legislator attention and provided most of the media eye candy Tuesday night. It was the community advocacy and the Legislature’s subsequent endorsement of a cautiously-worded, though transparently one-sided resolution supporting unionization by Cayuga Medical Center hospital nurses.
There was the substance, and there was also the circus. For purposes here, reporting on the circus is more instructive.
On social media, the Tompkins County Workers Center, the local living wage lobbying group, had urged all union supporters to “fill the chamber” to support the nurses. Its plea succeeded.
At meeting’s start, nursing-rights advocates packed the gallery. Attendees, we were told, spilled into the hallway, down the stairs and out to the building’s door. That said, only fifteen people provided public comment. Had everyone exercised his or her entitlement to three-minutes of speaking time, the two hour meeting would have stretched past midnight.
Advocates’ themes proved consistent; often repetitive: Cayuga Medical Center (CMC) nurses are overworked, poorly paid, and under-appreciated by hospital management. Nurses deserve the right to form a union. And CMC management has employed unfair labor practices to thwart their efforts.
After about 40 minutes of public comment—far less than the several hours some might have expected—legislators unanimously voted to support a slightly-revised pro-union draft. No one at the table considered opposing it. Essentially, it was all an exercise in labor rights messaging, words carrying no real impact beyond the point of public persuasion.
In retrospect, one suspects the political theater on display was intended not so much for the Tompkins County Legislature as for a broader audience; for the media, for the public, and for the rank-and-file nurses who will vote on union affiliation January 14 and 15. Lawmaker support was pretty much assured. The signs, the speeches, the show of force, the largest of its kind in years, if not decades, were massive overkill. But how the resolution came into being tells us much about those now feeling their oats.
On the meeting’s posted agenda, Deborah Dawson had been listed as resolution sponsor. Not so. When meeting time arrived, newcomer Iris Packman, a Cornell labor lawyer who now represents Ithaca’s East Hill, placed the measure onto the floor. She advanced it; indeed, she anointed it; and did so with an exuberant, proactive passion that shook the chamber. Packman owned the moment. She made nurse unionization not just as a goal, but as her crusade. Shawna Black later acknowledged that the eight new legislators, not Dawson, had collaborated to give the resolution life.
“Government support for unionizing is not new; it’s not a radical idea,” Packman proclaimed in a floor speech that commanded five minutes of legislative time and was greeted afterward by applause.
“We want the nurses to feel the energy that we have in this room right now; to know that the community is behind them,” Packman closed her endorsement.
Packman’s speech proved a standout moment Tuesday night. Watch Iris Packman. Her words, her projection, her body language are that of a blossoming politician. The Tompkins County Legislature may not be her last stop. Think Albany. Think Congress. Think wherever.
Yet for those of us accustomed to restraint and decorum, the January 6 organizational meeting riled our gut. It was as though when Dryden’s Mike Lane vacated legislative chambers last month, ending service that stretched back to 1993, he took gravitas along with him. This latest meeting just felt different. And for some of us, it didn’t feel right. It felt cheapened.
First off, there was the applause; so much of it. After every pro-union advocate spoke and every legislator weighed in, the room erupted. The size of the crowd only amplified the annoyance. It transformed our county government’s sedate deliberative body into the likes of your average daytime TV talk show.
At one point, Deborah Dawson admitted that clapping violates legislative rules. But no one really tried to stop it. Dawson brushed off the violation as a one-off, not to set a precedent. We’ll see. One senses that the emotion-driven, incoming 2026 freshman class finds it fun to break some china.
Yet dig deeper. Irritation draws its energy from another source. It comes in the incoming class’s celebration of “Me;” in members’ frequent self-indulgence.
“I don’t know if I’m gonna’ get weepy now as I’m all cried out… but it is just such an absolute honor to be sitting here tonight,” newly-elected Irene Weiser began her two-minute, scripted inaugural statement, choking on her words.
“And it’s an honor unlike anything I’ve known before.” Weiser continued, holding back tears. “People keep asking me, are you excited?” she said. “What I’ve been feeling isn’t excitement as much as deep respect and humility and honestly just a sense of awe at the seriousness of the responsibility we carry, and the care and thought that goes into the work, and awe at our collective commitment to serving something larger than ourselves.”
Irene Weiser, who now represents Caroline and Danby on the Legislature, has reason to be the most adroit among any who assumed their new responsibilities Tuesday. Weiser’s served on the Caroline Town Board. And when former Legislature Chair (and one-time congressional candidate) Martha Robertson served a few years back, Weiser was one of Robertson’s closest allies. Weiser knows the ropes.
In the CMC nurses debate, if you’d call it that, Iris Packman referenced her kids getting injured and needing after-hours treatment. Christy Bianconi drew upon her day job as a clinical social worker. Judith Hubbard recalled when she gave birth to a three-pound baby and learned only from nurses how to breastfeed and change an under-sized infant’s diaper. At times the meeting begged for Oprah.
Tompkins County lawmakers have long pulled themselves to messaging resolutions like a magnet, taking stands on such issues like the minimum wage and single-payer health care. If anything, the newly-sworn half of the incoming Legislature may gravitate to messaging even more.
“I felt the pulse of democracy coming back,” Irene Weiser stated as she paid respect to the scores of placard-carrying labor activists crowded into the chamber to plead the nurses’ case. “I felt our opportunity to take this country back from the oligarchy and corporatism that is ruining our lives for the sake of profit.”
Given words like Weiser’s, expect the Legislature’s liberal-powered arm to reach ever-farther, well beyond such comparatively mundane, everyday responsibilities as whether to build a Center of Government, remodel a jail, or replace the Podunk Road bridge.
One who observed the real-time video stream of Tuesday night’s meeting “struggled” watching and pledged afterward never again to watch a Legislature meeting. The over-the-top self-centeredness and cheapened theatrics became too much to take.
All during the nearly 90 minutes of public supplication and member posturing meeting night, Newfield-Enfield’s Randy Brown sat silent as talk about the nurses went on and on… and on. Brown voted in favor of the resolution, but he saved his observations about the evening until two nights’ later when he addressed the Newfield Town Board.
Brown’s assessment to Newfield: “What a waste of time.”
###