The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Kuhl campaign has re-launched the Kuhl for Congress site. Some new features include a blog, and the ability to contribute via credit card.

The issues page is similar to the old blog, and many of the issue statements reference events in the distant past. For example, the "War on Terror" section references Kuhl's 2006 trip to Iraq as a recent one.

Reader Paul sends stories from Boston concerning one of Amo Houghton's last earmarks. Houghton, who held the 29th seat for nine terms, is one of the honorary chairs of Randy Kuhl's re-election campaign.

The Boston Globe story reports that Amo inserted a $50K earmark into a water appropriations bill to study the feasibility of connecting a pond in Massachusetts to a nearby harbor. The pond happens to cause flooding of nearby properties, one of which is owned by Houghton's wife. The study earmark was followed by another earmark of $728K by Democrat Bill Delahunt (MA-10), who represents Cohasset. The Corps of Engineers also budgeted $320K from a discretionary fund for the project.

The Boston Herald column includes a picture of the property. A later Herald piece reports that the town of Cohasset rejected the project.

My impression of Amo Houghton is that he's an honorable man, and I take him at his word when he says that he believes this project is in the best interests of the area. But the problem with earmarks is that even a well-intentioned, bi-partisan earmark is often bad policy. Clearly, the Cohasset voters think the project isn't essential. So it's unlikely that it would have been funded if Amo hadn't been able to use his connections to secure federal funding.

Today's Messenger-Post has a story on Randy Kuhl's "Fix Washington" program. Kuhl held a press conference on Friday to announce the program, but nobody spoke because no press showed up.

The Star-Gazette carries the announcement that the Kuhl campaign's honorary chairs are Amo Houghton, former occupant of the 29th seat, and Maggie Brooks, Monroe County Executive.

Howard Dean was the keynote speaker at last night's Monroe County Democratic Convention. That convention endorsed Eric Massa for the 29th seat. Dean also attended a Massa fundraiser earlier yesterday afternoon.

Dean's visit was covered by local media: WXXI, WROC, WHEC, and the D&C.

WHAM13 has just posted an excellent special report on Ethanol. Money quote:

Here are the facts: The net energy contribution of corn ethanol is debatable, the environmental consequences of devoting more land to corn are clearly negative, ethanol subsidies are draining the federal treasury during a period of fiscal distress AND we’re adding to the burdens of the world’s poor. Why do we persist? We need only look at agricultural-industrial complex to find the answer—agribusiness (which now includes biofuels investors in our own state), farmers (large and small), farm state voters and their representatives in Congress, and USDA are driving this policy. Consumers, both here and abroad, and taxpayers outside the farm belt are simply outgunned.

Ethanol is a great example of dysfunctional bi-partisanship. Food processing interests like ADM loved ethanol because they could build new factories to create it from corn. Farmers liked it because it gave them a market for their surplus corn. With the family farmer and ag industry on board, both Democrats and Republicans funded ethanol for years because it appeased two interest groups. It didn't matter that corn-based ethanol was a energy-wasting dead end. Now, we have poor people starving in part because of our decision that funding ethanol was a harmless boondoggle.

Yesterday and today, a couple of progressive blogs (The Albany Project and Rochesterturning) lauded the new Farm Bill because it includes big handouts for New York farmers. This is short-sighted. In a time when we're facing record deficits, both Republicans and Democrats have come to a Farm Bill "compromise" where interest groups loyal to either party get big handouts. Our children will pay for those handouts, just as we are all paying higher food prices today, in part because of similar ethanol "compromises" in the past.

Democrat Travis Childers won last night's special election in Mississippi by a comfortable margin in a redder district than the 29th. Both the DCCC and the NRCC spent heavily in the race, with the NRCC spending $1.3 million, 20% of their cash on hand.

This is the third special Congressional election lost by Republicans this year. All of the losses have been in traditionally Republican districts, and each of the elections have seen healthy spending by both parties. This Fall, it's likely that Massa will see some of the same heavy spending from the DCCC. Unless the NRCC does a dramatically better job, Kuhl probably won't get the same level of support from the national party. Tom Cole, head of the NRCC, hinted that Republican members are on their own in his statement on last night's loss:

I encourage all Republican candidates, whether incumbents or challengers, to take stock of their campaigns and position themselves for challenging campaigns this fall by building the financial resources and grassroots networks that offer them the opportunity and ability to communicate, energize and turn out voters this election.

The Massa Campaign has a new fundraising letter out, and it contains some information that puts yesterday's NRCC release of an old poll into context.

Roll Call, which is a subscription-only DC paper, has put Randy Kuhl on its its list of 10 most vulnerable Members of Congress. They've also changed the race rating to "toss up" from "Leans Republican". Most pundits still have the 29th race leaning towards Kuhl because of the fundamentals of the district. The new Roll Call rankings say the following about the race:

Although the sprawling district trends Republican in presidential election years, it will be a very competitive race. Despite representing the area in the state Legislature for two dozen years before he was elected in 2004, Kuhl has never built up much goodwill in the district, and his fundraising has been lackluster. Massa is still a little raw, but he’s genuine. Kuhl is in trouble.

According to what little Roll Call lets the unwashed masses read, the release of an old poll by the NRCC is standard operating procedure when a MOC hits the top ten.

The Massa campaign also released a story from Sunday's Corning Leader [pdf] that highlights the change in the race's ranking.

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader Opinion Page [pdf], which contains an op-ed from Randy Kuhl and a letter from Eric Massa.

Kuhl's op-ed is a protest of the Democrats' plan to bring the Iraq Supplemental up for a vote without committee action or much meaningful debate. At one point in the op-ed, Kuhl compares Nancy Pelosi's conduct with that of "oppressive regimes".

While I don't doubt that a little more bi-partisan agreement might make the House a better place, I wonder about Kuhl's choice to use an entire op-ed to bring up procedural issues. The House is like a sausage factory: the process can be pretty ugly and might even turn some people into vegetarians, but in the end, most people only care whether the sausage is any good. As Eric Massa points out in his letter, gas prices are up and employment is down. That's the sausage, and no matter how it's made, it isn't very tasty.

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader front-page [pdf] story (jump [pdf]), which contains Kuhl's reaction to a DCCC press release about energy.

The DCCC claims that Kuhl is a friend of big oil, and uses two facts to back that up. First, it claims that Kuhl has received $29,600 from oil companies. Second, it claims that Kuhl voted against a bill that would end taxpayer subsidies for big oil.

Kuhl questioned the accuracy of the first charge, but according to OpenSecrets, he received $29K from energy and natural resource companies in the 2006 cycle. In the current cycle, he's received a tenth of that, but the real arm-twisting hasn't started yet.

The vote that the DCCC is talking about happened this Spring, on the Energy Bill. The summary from non-partisan Project Vote Smart, includes this:

-Prevents tax deductions to major integrated oil companies for income resulting from the domestic production of oil and gas (Sec. 301).

Kuhl also supports a cut in the gas tax and drilling in ANWR, both of which aren't solutions, as I've discussed earlier.

Grievous Angel at Rochesterturning has today's Massa Press Conference. Topics included the relationship between the Iraq War and our current economic woes, the price of gas, and health care.