The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

At this morning's telephone press conference, Eric Massa answered questions about Iraq, immigration and his campaign. Massa plans to make these conferences a regular Wednesday event, and I'll try to cover as many as I can. I'd also like to cover the Kuhl telephone press conferences, but those are apparently restricted to accredited press.

The immigration debate and tomorrow's House vote on stem cell research were the two issues that Massa wanted to highlight in this conference. On immigration, Massa summarized his position: He opposes the current immigration bill, supports a guest worker program with visas issued in the country of origin, and has consistently opposed amnesty for illegal immigrants.

I asked Massa what he proposed to do about the 10-12 million illegal immigrants in country, if he doesn't support amnesty. In responding to that question, Massa laid out four points that shape his stance on immigration:

1. One of the root causes of the influx of illegal immigrants is the economic disparity between the US and countries South of the border. Open door free trade, supported by treaties like NAFTA and CAFTA, has led to an influx of agribusiness in Mexico which has wiped out a number of small farmers there. A better partnership in economic development with Mexico and Central America will help address the root causes, and nobody is addressing this as part of the immigration debate.
2. There is a real need for a viable, legal agricultural guest worker program. Based on anecdotal evidence (and Massa is looking for empirical backup for this), almost all of the migrant workers in the 29th return home in some fashion or other once a year. If those workers were able to return home without fear of losing their job, this would help avoid the formation of a permanent underclass.
3. A grape grower in Schuyler or Yates county can't be the final line of defense in immigration. Farmers don't have the ability to determine whether the valid-looking Social Security cards presented by migrant workers are really valid. The current bill makes no distinction between that grower and a multinational company like Wal-Mart trucking immigrant workers in to do night shift cleaning.
4. The border should be secure, not closed. Massa pointed to his experience while serving in Belgium, where thousands of workers passed over the Belgian border daily, yet Belgium has nothing like the issue we have with immigration.

I followed up with a question about workers who aren't agricultural workers - what's Massa's plan for them?

Massa said he doesn't have all of the details, and his main focus is how immigration affects the 29th district, and border security and a guest agricultural worker program are key to the solution here. That said, he said he'd be open to an avenue for earned citizenship. Though he recognizes that deportation, especially of known criminals, is part of an immigration policy, he doesn't want to live in a country where we're "dispatching police in the middle of the night to knock down doors".

Rob Montana of the Hornell Evening Tribune followed up with a question about the difference between earned citizenship and amnesty.

Massa didn't have a specific answer to this question, though he pointed out that his grandparents came here on a guest worker program and earned citizenship, so it's part of our immigration tradition.

After immigration, a couple of campaign questions were asked. I wondered how close Massa was to his $300,000 by June 30 fundraising goal.

Massa noted that this goal wasn't his, it was a goal set in Washington by the DCCC. He said that his main focus isn't fundraising, but meeting and activating grassroots activists. When I asked whether Massa had encountered David Nachbar on the campaign trail, he said that Nachbar hasn't been to any committee meetings, but he was focused on beating Randy Kuhl.

Rob also asked if Massa was planning any town-hall type meetings, similar to those hosted by Randy Kuhl.

Massa pointed out that he had over 300 house parties before the last election, and his goal is to exceed that this year. He will also hold some public meetings, such as one in Belfast on Saturday, and also an event with General Batiste in Olean on October 23. The house parties are open to the public, and Massa said he begins each meeting with the statement: "I want to answer every question you ask of me to the best of my abilities."

The next set of questions concerned Iraq. I started by asking about Massa's May 27 post in the Daily Kos, where he said that " We must force [President Bush] again and again to VETO the funding Bills that would in fact support our troops." My question was whether he had a positive agenda that Congress should follow to end the war in Iraq?

Massa's responded by noting that the 2006 election showed the will of the people, and that the President does not want to bend to that will. At some point, he believes a compromise would have been reached - Bush would have been " the only person standing on the diving board".

Rob followed up with a question about "supporting the troops", wondering why it was OK for Democrats to criticize Republicans on those grounds, and citing a DCCC press release.

Massa chose to ignore the DCCC reference (it wasn't his press release), pointing out that he or any other military person should not allow politicians to question their support of the troops. Then, getting to the meat of the matter, he said, "Everyone knows that members of both parties will do everything they can do to make sure that our men and women are financially supported." This debate isn't about supporting the troops, he said, it is about our failed strategy in Iraq. "Randy Kuhl can throw any smokescreens he wants [...] His lack of statements speaks louder than any statement from his press secretary."

Finally, I asked what benchmarks or timetables could be part of a bi-partisan compromise.

Massa pointed out that the first benchmark is privatization of the oil industry. (See this Wikipedia article for more information). He pointed out that it is "ludicrous" that we are putting soldiers in jeopardy so the Iraqi government can sell off its oil fields. In general, he thought that there could be a bi-partisan compromise if "some common sense" was injected into the process.