The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

I've added a left sidebar to the site, which will be used to track Eric Massa's votes and legislation. At the moment, only recent votes are visible. As soon as Massa makes a floor speech or sponsors some legislation, a feed of that information will be visible, too.

This data is provided by the excellent GovTrack site, which allows you to set up custom trackers for Congress. The site is an impressive, free effort by Josh Tauber and a few other volunteers, and it's worth a visit.

I've also changed the top right menuing to remove earmarks (which aren't available yet), and replace it with a resources page. That page has a few links for those curious about doing more Congressional research.

I'll be pimping up the feed displays over the next couple of days.

Eric Massa's office sent this shot of his ceremonial swearing-in. Massa's 80-year-old father, Capt. (Ret.) Emiddio Massa, stands to Nancy Pelosi's right, his mother, Mae, is in the center, and his wife, Beverly, is to Massa's left.

Rochester City Newspaper and the The Hornell Evening Tribune have their swearing-in stories posted.

The New York Times has a Wheels Blog post on Massa's ride to DC. As the Corning Leader reported yesterday, it turns out that two vehicles were required because there aren't enough hydrogen stations between Corning and DC. GM ended up towing one of them for part of the trip.

Update: Thanks to Elmer for pointing out that the Leader scooped the Grey Lady by a solid day.

Local media is full of swearing-in stories. R-News, Buffalo News, the D&C and the Star-Gazette all have a piece about or including Eric Massa.

When Massa's website launched yesterday, it included the address of his Rochester-area office. Massa is taking over Kuhl's old office at 220 Packett's Landing in Fairport. Massa's new office will be at 101 Grove Street, Ste 101 in Pittsford.

Update: Massa's office tells me the website is wrong and will be updated with the new address. (2nd Update: It's there.)

Eric Massa's first major vote of the 111th Congress occurred this afternoon, when he voted to support his party's rules package. The major change in this session's rules was a significant limitation in the use of the motion to recommit.

The motion to recommit requires that an amendment be added to a bill and the bill be reported back to the House. The sticking point is how quickly the bill will come back. In House jargon, "promptly" means that the bill will go back to committee and perhaps never be seen again. The alternative, "forthwith", means that the bill must come back to the floor in a few minutes for a vote on the amendment.

In the 110th Congress, Republicans would offer desirable amendments in their motions to recommit, but they would require that the motion contain the language "promptly", which killed a number of bills. The new rule, which Massa supported, requires that motions to recommit use the "forthwith" language.

Eric Massa's official site is now live, and the press releases have begun.

In additon to confirming that Massa will serve on Armed Services, his office also announced that he's co-sponsored his first piece of legislation. Massa joins Ron Paul in sponsoring a bill eliminating automatic pay raises for Congress.

Massa also made Politico's list of 13 up-and-comers sworn in for the first time today.

Rochesterturning has video of Eric Massa's address to supporters at a reception last night in Washington, DC.

According to CongressDaily (subscription required), Eric Massa has been assigned to the Armed Services committee. Other assignments are still up in the air.

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader story [pdf] on Massa's trip to DC, which includes a picture of Massa with the GM fuel cell vehicle.

Eric Massa will be sworn in today at noon on the floor of the House. Seating is limited for that ceremony, and only his wife and parents will attend in person. A live feed will be available in Massa's House office (1208 in the Longworth building), and it will be broadcast live on C-SPAN.

Michael Parks sends this photo of Eric Massa and Monica Murphy from GM filling up the fuel cell vehicle he drove to DC. According to this WETM story, the fuel cell portion of the car is about the size of a microwave oven. WXXI has an 15 minute interview with Massa, and their story reports that the prototype is worth $1.3 million. Massa is just paying mileage. Syracuse News 10 has some video of Massa's departure from Corning.

The Star-Gazette has a story about and picture of the fuel-cell car Eric Massa drove to DC today.