With
Republicans enjoying a slim 22-member majority in the 435-member US House of
Representatives, both parties are paying close attention to seats around the
nation that seem in play. One of those lies on Rochester’s doorstep, with
18-year Republican Congressman Amo Houghton of Corning is retiring, clearing
the field for two fresh challengers. Houghton’s former district — New York’s
29th — encompasses all or part of nine Monroe County towns plus seven other
counties.
Both
contenders hail from the Southern Tier. State Senator John “Randy” Kuhl Jr., a
24-year veteran of Albany, fought off a primary challenge from Monroe County
Legislator Mark Assini. Assini remains on the ballot on the Conservative line
but has said he will forgo active campaigning for the seat, rather than risk
becoming the 29th district’s Ralph Nader.
Kuhl’s
opponent, Samara Barend, is a 27-year-old activist who would become the
youngest member of congress if elected. The former aide to Hillary Clinton
gained her first political experience interning for the late Sen. Daniel P.
Moynihan, where she helped organize a campaign to turn state Route 17 into
Interstate 86 — something her campaign is actively reminding voters.
With
no incumbent, both national parties are watching the race carefully. Clinton
has already joined Barend at stump speeches in the Southern Tier. Meanwhile the
Republican Party, which enjoys a three-to-two registration advantage in the
district, is slated to send House Speaker Dennis Hastert to a fundraiser at the
Rochester Riverside Convention Center on Monday.
Whoever
is elected, the winner’s national party will likely get what it expects. Barend
is a moderate Democrat, while Kuhl’s a conservative Republican. They differ
predictably on standard social issues like abortion (she’s pro-choice; he’s
anti-choice) and President Bush’s proposed constitutional amendment banning gay
marriage (Kuhl supports it; Barend opposes it). Kuhl said recently he may not
join the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership founded by his predecessor
Houghton.
The
race became the subject national media attention after the Associated Press
Friday posted a Washington-datelined story about allegations contained in
Kuhl’s sealed 1998 divorce records that he threatened ex-wife Jennifer
Kuhl-Peterson with two shotguns. The documents’ contents were originally
published by Raw Story, a
left-leaning Boston-based Internet news site. Although picked up by daily
newspapers from Oregon to West Virginia, the story hasn’t seen much coverage in
outlets throughout the district.
City Newspaper spoke to
Barend, but Kuhl’s campaign would not grant an interview despite repeated
requests, citing scheduling concerns. Following are the stances of each
candidate on some of the issues that are emerging in the district.
Both
candidates agree economic development is a chief concern within the
district, but each would tackle the issue differently.
“First
and foremost I think that we need to pass legislation that’s going to crack
down on the unfair trade policies that we have right now. We need more
enforcement and we should not be entering into trade agreements that are not
being enforced,” says Barend. Monroe County is the region hit hardest by un-enforced
trade agreements in the district, she says: “This area is the third-biggest
manufacturing loser in the whole country and it’s because we’re entering into
trade agreements that are not carried out in good faith.”
Kuhl
takes a more cautious approach toward any action which could impede
international trade. “There’s no question in my mind that you have to open up
markets for our companies to be able to compete in and actually expand their
businesses. I support free trade,” he said during a debate earlier this month
hosted by R News. “But it has to be fair trade. You can’t have countries
undermining free and fair trade, so there may be an opportunity where you have
to take the right and appropriate actions to make sure that free trade is in
fact fair trade.”
“When
people look at economic development, they look for a silver bullet, like the
fast ferry,” says Barend. “But there’s no one thing that’s going to bring a
plethora of jobs back. It’s going to have to happen in concert, and in working
together and in partnership. No one piece of federal legislation is going to
bring all the jobs back to this area.”
The
two differ more starkly on President Bush’s tax cuts.
Barend
says she would keep them for those with incomes below a threshold of between
$200,000 and $300,000, but repeal them at higher levels. “Right now, with the
way that we are spending money so rampantly, there’s no way we can afford these
tax cuts. We have deficits at record levels,” she says. “We can’t afford to pay
for our roads, our schools; we’re cutting funding every which way and that’s
having a serious, detrimental impact on the quality of life in this country and
on our economic state.” ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Barend
says that according to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing the cuts for
those earning over $200,000 would halve the federal budget deficit.
Kuhl,
by contrast, says he supports the cuts, and indicated during the debate that
he’d like to see them go deeper. “You have to create an economic atmosphere;
you do that by lowering taxes, by creating incentives for businesses to be
here, by creating essentially a critical mass that in fact will develop job
after job after job,” he said. Programs that do that, like Empire Zones, Kuhl
contends, really work.
The
two also have conflicting ideas on health care. Kuhl favors establishing health
savings accounts. “We need to be able to let people set money aside if they
don’t think they can afford insurance, and then utilize that when the need
comes,” he said.
Barend,
who says she strongly opposes privatizing programs like Medicare and Medicaid,
wants to allow small businesses to form health-care insurance purchasing
cooperatives. She’s also vigorously supported the re-importation of Canadian
Prescription drugs — going so far as to sponsor bus trips from the district
to Canada — and takes Kuhl to task for accepting campaign funds from
pharmaceutical companies.
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2004.
