Elizabeth Kase is no stranger to an election.
After watching her husband, Craig Johnson, lose a tight re-election bid for state Senate District 7 to Jack Martins in December, Kase is mounting a campaign of her own.
She was recently selected the Nassau County Democratic Committee nominee for county court judge. If elected, the 39-year-old would be perhaps the first to serve as part of a father-daughter team sitting on the same bench. Her father, John Kase, was elected county court judge in 2004.
“It’s a tremendous honor,” Kase said of her nomination. “One that really humbles me and is a great source of pride to my family and my law practice.”
Born and raised in Great Neck, the Great Neck North High School graduate admits she is young for a judicial nomination.
“I’m not going to shy away from who I am,” she said. “I feel very good about what I have accomplished in such a short time. I also think that my resume speaks for itself.”
Kase may also face questions about her husband. Craig Johnson, a 10-year veteran on the political scene, raised the ire of many government officials in Senate District 7 after more than $8 million in grants he promised to various municipalities, firefighters, and school districts were revoked by Senate Democrats after he lost the election. Democrats have said the money was revoked due to the financial crisis. Martins said at least some of the money was given to Democrats in other districts. Johnson has yet to comment on the controversy.
Asked if she was concerned about how the issue might affect her campaign, Kase said she is running on her own name and her own record.
“I’m not an arrogant person,” she said. “I don’t expect things. I work on my own merits and on my own reputation.”
Kase’s first job out of law school was at the Manhattan district attorney’s office under legendary D.A. Robert Morgenthau, where she helped establish the state’s first Cybersex Crimes Unit.
After her father was elected county court, she took his place at the firm he founded in 1977 – while seven months pregnant with her second child.
Nine days after a Caesarean section she was back at the office arranging cases. It was her version of having it all.
“There were a lot of people in the legal community who said, ‘she’s going to take over half the practice? Look at her, she’s a 32-year-old pregnant lady,'” Kase said.
Even as a child Kase was passionate about law. Her father founded Kase and Drucker when she was a young child and included her whenever he could. She has fond memories of answering phones and joining him on client interviews and trips to court.
“Whatever they needed me to do,” she said. “I would do everything.”
It was at Smith College in Northampton, MA where she met Craig Johnson, then a student at nearby Amherst College. For a while they had a long-distance relationship, until Kase started at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The two married in 1998, when she was 25.
Within a day of returning from her honeymoon, Kase was off to North Carolina for a moot court competition, an invitation only, simulated court proceeding for law students.
“I’m proud of my marriage, and I am proud of how we are a team,” she said. “We don’t take a back seat to each other, We are very much equals in our life history and our story. He is as much my best friend as he is my colleague.”
Before taking her father’s place at Kase and Drucker, she did internships at the U.S. Attorney’s Office General Crimes Bureau, the Kings County district attorney’s office Homicide Bureau, and the Legal Aid Society’s Cardozo Criminal Law Clinic.
In addition to her knowledge of the law, Kase said her familiarity with both defense and prosecution is one of the things that qualify her for a decade-long felony trial court judgeship.
“I’m actually excited for the opportunity to invest my time and my brain into a 10-year project,” she said. “This is an opportunity for me to serve my community, for me to give back.”
A proud father, John Kase said his daughter will make an outstanding judge.
“She obviously has the experience, and most of all she has a judicial temperament,” John Kase said. “She listens carefully before making a decision. She is polite to all of us who would appear before her. I know that from how she has behaved all her life. The Nassau courts will be very proud to have her as an addition.”
With three children ranging in age from 20 months to nine-years-old, Kase does not get much sleep. But she does not seem to mind.
She said no one is happier about the results of the last election than their children, adding that her husband will soon announce a new position at a New York City law firm.
“I helped support my husband during his 10 years of public service, and I am very proud that I was in a position to position to be the anchor of the family while he was in Albany, or wherever he needed to be,” she said. ” I don’t take anything for granted. I will handle this like I handle anything. I’ll just add it to the list.”