The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Today's Democrat and Chronicle carries a story about Louise Slaughter's (NY-28) participation in the Congressional delegation to the Mideast led by Nancy Pelosi. This delegation has become controversial because it is visiting Syria. Randy Kuhl's spokesman, Bob Van Wicklin, gives Kuhl's response:

Randy feels that it's the administration's job to deliver diplomatic messages, not Congress [...] The fact that Speaker Pelosi botched the message she delivered on behalf of Israel is evidence of that. We need to speak through one secretary of state, not 535 of them.

Kuhl has consistently favored diplomatic dialogue with Syria and Iran. The basic facts of the Pelosi "botch" are available from the Washington Post, which excoriated Pelosi for her misstep in an editorial yesterday.

Rochesterturning reports that Jack Moran, the proprietor of Roseland Bowl, is a former chair of the Bowling Proprietors Association of America, an association which gave $55K to mostly Republicans in the 2006 cycle. Randy Kuhl wasn't one of them.

MyDD has also picked up this story. What both sites seem to be missing is that this is a loan guarantee, not a loan. If Roseland pays back the loan, the loan will cost the government nothing. Because the government guarantees the loan, Roseland benefits by having a lower interest rate.

What's fishy about this particular transaction, if anything, is that the loan was guaranteed by the Department of Agriculture through a program that's supposed to benefit rural development. I don't view Canandaigua as a rural location, but it probably technically fits the standards of the loan guarantee program.

As Vincent points out in a comment on this morning's post, this transaction assured 36 jobs in Canandaigua without costing the government a penny. I think locals will view that as a win, and that's how Kuhl will get re-elected.

Update 4/6: Today's Washington Post has a story on the USDA loan program that explains its broad definition of "rural". Besides Canandaigua, Cape Cod and the suburbs of Atlanta and Tampa are "rural" by the USDA's definition.

Randy Kuhl's office announced that the Roseland Bowl, a bowling alley in Canandaigua, will receive a $2.5 million loan guarantee from the US Department of Agriculture. The loan was part of the USDA rural development program, and allowed the bowling alley to restructure debt to save interest costs.

Even though he's professed his belief that this isn't the time for campaigning, Randy Kuhl still feels the occasional need to throw some red meat to the restless, ravenous base. The latest portion came in the form of a press release decrying tax increases in "Democrat Budget". The question I have for Rep. Kuhl and his supporters is how he reconciles the red meat with the milk. It just isn't kosher.

Using taxes to inflame the base is the first page of the Republican playbook, especially in a state with a tax burden like New York's. Kuhl makes a number of claims in his press release, most of which are based on projections five years in the future. Of course, those projections assume that Congress does nothing to tweak the budget or the tax code, so they're probably exaggerated. Nevertheless, Kuhl's fundamental claim is true: taxes are going to go up in the next few years.

I don't think this is news to anyone, since we're waging a trillion-dollar war. If you don't like taxes, you're not going to enjoy the next few years, because we're going to have to pay for what we purchased in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since Rep. Kuhl doesn't like taxes, you'd guess that he'd be working to cut spending. Of course, you'd be wrong.

Randy Kuhl is the only New York member of the House Agriculture Committee. In that role, he's been quoted frequently in news articles about issues important to farmers. Last week, Kuhl, who loudly denounced the Iraq supplemental because it was full of pork, noted that dairy farmers are in a pickle because funding for the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) didn't get included in that bill:

I am really very concerned that, unless these farmers get some immediate relief, they may not be able to survive. [...] We've got to figure out what else we can do very quickly.

The MILC compensates farmers when the price of milk falls below a certain amount. When Wal-Mart comes to town and puts the local hardware store out of business, there's no WILC (Wal-Mart Income Loss Contract) to save the day, and there's no expectation that Congress will compensate for the "family hardware store". But the "family farm" is sacred to Congress, and billions are spent every year to create artificial markets for agricultural products like milk.

Kuhl is also at the forefront of adding new provisions to the latest agriculture bill. Rochesterturning linked to this account of the wrangling over the new farm bill. The piece notes that Randy Kuhl has allied himself with a group of other Republicans in support of H R 1600, the "Eat Healthy America Act". It has a number of provisions (something for everyone), but, most notably, it extends farm subsidies for crops that aren't currently subsidized.

Kuhl's support of both of these bills is probably good representation of his constituents. There are a lot of dairy farmers in the 29th, and the 29th also includes crops that would be covered by H R 1600. But his support of these bills, which use taxpayer money to fund false markets for agricultural goods, flies in the face of his recent rant against higher taxes. If taxes are going to rise to an intolerable level, why is John R Kuhl Jr. co-sponsoring more government handouts?

I know a lot of smart, fiscally conservative Republicans who don't buy what politicians like Kuhl are selling. They want to see the rhetoric about taxes backed up with action. Kuhl hasn't done that, but he's certainly able to use anti-tax talk to whip up his base. My question is when (or if) his rhetoric will cease to pass the sniff test with more than a few, smarter constituents in the restless base.

Over 150 union members faced off against Randy Kuhl outside the Steuben Library in Corning yesterday. The confrontation was sparked by Kuhl's vote against H R 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. Union members at the action said Kuhl had promised to vote for the measure and changed his mind because of his allegiance to the Bush administration. Kuhl says that he decided to vote against it after "looking deeper" into the issue.

Kuhl had been a co-sponsor of the bill during the 109th Congress, but he withdrew his co-sponsorship less than a week after the 2006 election. Unions that had supported Kuhl during his 2004 run endorsed his opponent, Eric Massa, in the 2006 contest.

The House Government Reform committee held hearings today on a presentation given to GSA managers about the 2008 election. Because it was about partisan politics and contained phrases like "target list", it may have been a violation of the Hatch Act, which bars certain forms of partisan activity by government employees. Reader Anne writes to point out that the presentation [pdf] puts the 29th in the category of "priority defense" for 2008 (see page 28).

That's not a surprise, but the video of the head of the GSA being grilled is a classic. See her invoke the Sgt. Schultz defense after the break:

This morning's Democrat and Chronicle carries a story about the Federal Rail Administration's (FRA) inspection of CSX. In the aftermath of a catastrophic derailment in East Rochester in January, the FRA's investigation found 3,518 problems at CSX, of which almost 200 might lead to civil penalties. Randy Kuhl has been on top of his issue, requesting FRA inspection of track in the 29th.

Over the past week, the D&C has also carried stories about the water quality in the town of Victor. For 17 years, the town has been aware that toxic solvents may be contaminating homeowners' wells. The most recent story in the D&C quoted Randy Kuhl asking for an EPA inspection.

On the face of it, Kuhl has been reacting vigorously to two cases where more government involvement is needed. On a deeper level, these cases raise serious questions about Executive incompetence and Congressional oversight.

The CSX case is most clear-cut. Apparently it takes a train falling off of a railroad overpass onto a busy street to gain the attention of the FRA. Once the FRA awoke from its bureaucratic slumber, it found thousands of violations. If CSX is violating that many regulations, shouldn't the normal FRA oversight process find some of them? Do lives have to be endangered to get the attention of the FRA?

Randy Kuhl has said that he'll also be following up with increased Congressional oversight. That's good, because an agency that missed over 3,000 violations hasn't been under strict oversight for some time. As a member of the House Transportation Committee, Kuhl should be taking the lead in fixing the problem, and he should keep the 29th informed about how the committee will ensure that the FRA will be proactive in watching CSX.

In the case of the polluted Victor wells, it appears that New York State has primary jurisdiction, but it's still worth asking why it takes 17 years for the government to even acknowledge publicly that there's a problem. Shouldn't the EPA have had some previous oversight function here?

Both of these cases raise issues that cross the boundaries between Liberal and Conservative, or Republican and Democrat. Regardless of ideology or party affiliation, most voters believe that government has a legitimate role overseeing the safety of our transportation and drinking water. When watchdog agencies fail, Congressional oversight becomes an issue that can unite voters. It's not an abstract or "just politics" when trains start falling off overpasses.

Sorry about the downtime yesterday. Everything should be fixed and I'll resume posting soon.

Randy Kuhl voted against the Iraq funding bill this afternoon, to the surprise of nobody.

Kuhl's issued a couple of fire-and-brimstone press releases in support of his position on the bill. The first calls the Democrats' strategy a "slow bleed". The second notes that the bill contains a change to the way that agricultural disaster payments are alloted that might hurt New York apple farmers. Kuhl offered an amendment to the bill to address this issue. It was rejected by the Rules Committee, chaired by his neighbor, Louise Slaughter.

Kuhl asks, with justification, how a war funding bill ended up with a bunch of unrelated amendments. The answer is that the division in the Democratic party ranks required $20 billion of enticements to get some members to sign on. Kuhl calls this a "veritable Christmas Tree" for the Democrats.

Stuart Rothenberg's Political Report features a story about the 29th in today's print edition. Rothenberg has posted a teaser for those of us, like me, who are too cheap to pay $197 for a one year subscription.

Larry Sabato's, another national pundit, has posted his redistricting predictions in his latest column. If population trends continue, Sabato predicts that New York will lose 6 districts by 2030.