The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Times-Union has the story of Brian Kolb's elevation to Assembly Minority Leader. Kolb confirms that he's not running for NY-29 in 2010, and talks a little smack:

Eric Massa, wherever he is right now, is breathing a sigh of relief. I will not be running for Congress.

Howard Owens at The Batavian writes about a new Gallup well-being survey that ranks Congressional districts. Here's a summary of the four districts in the Rochester area, sorted by their overall self-reported well-being. The first number is a score, the second is the district's ranking out of all of the districts in the U.S.

As you can see, only the sad-sack 28th ranks below us in well-being. Here's another chart, this time with Census demographics. Shockingly enough, it looks like income tracks the well-being index pretty closely.

I was called for this survey last week, though I don't know what period this data is from. There's more information on what each of the well-being indexes means at Gallup's site.

Eric Massa's office sent over this photo of Massa at the opening of the Olean office.

They also sent today's Corning Leader opinion page [pdf], which includes Joe Dunning's column. Dunning thinks that Massa is proving himself to be more "maverick" than "rubber stamp".

This weekend's Steuben Courier has two Massa stories, one about funding for the Bath and Canandaigua VA hospitals and one about the impact of the budget on area farmers.

Reader Stanley sends this Roll Call story about the future of Brian Kolb, who's next in line for NY Assembly Minority Leader. Kolb says running for Congress is "front and center" in his thinking if he's not named to the spot. That said, rumors are flying that Tedisco is out no matter whether he squeaks out a narrow win in NY-20.

Following up on yesterday's post on bandwidth, here's a more technical analysis of Time-Warner's claims that they need to raise prices because of Internet usage.

The technology used by Time-Warner is easy (and cheap) to upgrade. Most of Time-Warner's cost is "sunk cost" of a fiber network that's been in place for at least a decade. Also, Time-Warner's own analysis (in Beaumont, Texas) shows that most users don't exceed their caps today.

It's clear that Time-Warner's real reason for a cap has nothing to do with usage or cost. The goal is to protect their cable TV business from Internet encroachment tomorrow, and to chisel heavy users of their service in cities where they have a virtual monopoly.

The article also points out that Time-Warner and AT&T, the other provider in Beaumont, are not competing to the benefit of consumers. AT&T has already decided to cap usage in that market. Expect the same collusion from Frontier and Time-Warner in the Rochester market.

Beaumont is a few miles up the coast from Ron Paul's district in Texas. He has a good word to describe what Time-Warner is trying to pull: "corporatism".

Reader Michael sends a BusinessWeek piece about Time-Warner Cable's plans to institute consumption-based Internet pricing in the Rochester market. Unfortunately, it's not an April Fool's joke.

This isn't the first such effort in the region. Last Fall, Frontier changed their terms of service to include a very low (5GB/month) cap. After an outcry, including a website dedicated to stop the cap, Frontier backed down.

There's nothing wrong with the concept of usage-based Internet pricing, but all of the usage tiering I've seen is unrealistic. Time-Warner's is no exception: by one calculation, their top tier, which is still pretty limited, would lead to $200/month in overage charges for a family whose use I'd classify as "moderate".

I have yet to see a pricing plan that acknowledges that the average user in 2009 spends a fair amount of time on YouTube, that Internet use will grow, and that the Internet provider's cost for raw bandwidth has been shrinking. These plans also ignore that broadband Internet has been sold on basis of speed, not usage, for the last decade, and that the Internet providers have cut their own throats by promising ever-greater speeds without major price increases.

Most importantly, none of these pricing plans give anything to get their greatly increased profits. These new plans don't guarantee speed or availability. They just demand much more money for less service.

There's little or no competition in the home Internet market -- Time-Warner has a monopoly in large parts of the 29th district. One way to get a real market here and elsewhere is to treat Internet service the way we treat telephone service. Local service - the connection to the nearest switching center - would be the responsibility of Time-Warner or Frontier and have a regulated, low price based on the actual cost of delivering the service. At the switching center, other, nationwide bandwidth providers would be able to compete with Frontier or Time-Warner for our Internet business.

Like long-distance, once real competition hit the market, we'd see an ever-diminishing cost for Internet bandwidth. It's only because TWC and Frontier have a monopoly that they'd even consider $200/month Internet pricing. Their recent actions have shown that their Internet monopoly needs to be broken.

The Buffalo News examines the impact of stimulus funds on the West Valley Demonstration Project. Cleanup at the site will be accelerated by three years, and 200 new jobs will be created, according to Massa, Schumer and Gillibrand.

The Star-Gazette has the news on the winners of this year's Congressional Arts Competition. Two students from Horseheads took the honors, and their work is worth a look.

Massa was able to ask President Obama a question at yesterday's meeting with the Democratic caucus.

Reader Stanley sends last week's Capitol Newspaper article about the prospects for a 2010 race.

Stanley was nice enough to summarize three points from the piece. I don't think the arguments for any of them are great, and I give my reasons below.

1. Kuhl's problems won the race for Massa.

True, in part, but Massa also ran a top-notch campaign, with grassroots organizing, excellent fundraising, and good GOTV. Massa is not the Democratic equivalent of Joseph Cao -- someone who was elected only because of the missteps of his opponent. As an incumbent, Massa's a formidable opponent, no matter who runs against him.

2. Maggie Brooks is the GOP frontrunner.

Maggie's name gets mentioned a lot, but it's not even clear that she lives in the district. Also, I don't see a Monroe County Republican swaying Southern Tier blanks who might be inclined to vote for a Republican. It's hard to overstate the importance of this seat to the Southern Tier, and Maggie's power base is in Rochester, not Elmira or Corning.

3. The Tedisco/Kolb factor. If Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco loses in NY-20 tomorrow, Brian Kolb, a Canandaigua Republican in line for Tedisco's job, might be more likely to run for Congress.

If so, Mr. Kolb should declare his candidacy on Wednesday because he'll need the time to raise money for a Congressional run. His state office warchest is useless in a federal race. Also, if Tedisco does lose, isn't that a bit of a message to Mr Kolb and other Assembly Republicans who are thinking about making the jump to Congress?

The elephant in the room, redistricting, is never mentioned in the article, and it's a big issue. Before the 2012 race, the boundaries for WNY districts are likely to be redrawn to the benefit of Democrats. A Republican elected in 2010 in NY-29 may be a one-term wonder, and I'd expect a lot of smart politicians (like Maggie Brooks) to sit out next year's race and run in 2012 or 2014 after the redistricting dust has settled.

Update: Stanley writes to point out the Massa vs. Slaughter/Morelle comment in the piece. From what I've seen, Slaughter has been pretty cooperative with Massa, holding joint conferences and inviting him to serve in the new upstate caucus. I'm not saying that Louise and Eric are BFFs, but there doesn't seem to be obvious friction.

Today's Corning Leader story about passenger rail quotes a number of local officials, including Eric Massa. There's general agreement that passenger rail in the area is not going to dip down into the Southern Tier.