ELECTION '08: Congress: A three-way fight for the 25th district
Rochester City Newspaper
Jeremy Moul
October 22nd, 2008
The economy's been on a rollercoaster, Iraq and Afghanistan are becoming increasingly complex operations, and everyone's worried about energy prices.
It's a hell of a time to run for Congress. Democrat Dan Maffei, Republican Dale Sweetland, and Green Populist Howie Hawkins are fighting it out for a chance to represent the 25th Congressional District.
Republican Jim Walsh has held the seat for 20 years, but is not seeking re-election. His retirement announcement blew the race wide open.
The 25th District is traditionally centered in Onondaga County, but it stretches across part of Cayuga County, all of Wayne County, and the Monroe County towns of Webster, Penfield, and Irondequoit.
A slim majority of the district's 423,370 registered voters are Republican: 36 percent compared to the 33 percent registered as Democrats. But the district has a large number of unaffiliated voters - 26 percent. Less than 1 percent of the voters are registered to the Green Party.
This is Maffei's second run at the seat, but he never really stopped campaigning after his 2006 bid.
A big part of his campaign has been a plan to renew the region's economy through medical, biotech, and renewable energy research. Between Syracuse, Rochester, and Ithaca there's more "academic power" than North Carolina's Research Triangle, he says. More federal investment in research could bolster the work that they're doing, he says.
An Apollo program-like initiative to achieve energy independence by 2020, for example, would spur green technology innovation which would create jobs, boost the economy, and help address rising energy prices, he says.
Maffei said he would not have supported the Iraq war and that troops should be withdrawn on a timetable set by military leaders. The focus needs to shift from a military operation to non-military efforts like diplomacy.
Maffei supports same-sex marriage and he's pro-choice.
Sweetland's roots may be in agriculture - he ran a farm for 25 years - but he's got political experience, too. He served three terms as supervisor in Fabius, Onondaga County, and seven terms on the Onondaga County Legislature. To help strengthen the economy, Sweetland says that he wants the federal government to step in to get states to stop passing Medicaid costs down to county governments. That would help relieve the state's property tax burden, he says.
"It's pretty well-documented that property taxes are the main inhibitor to both population and business growth in Upstate New York," Sweetland says.
More domestic drilling would help address rising energy costs, he says, but it needs to be coupled with other strategies. He wants more conservation and more public education about it. He favors government incentives to improve, develop, and implement clean energy technologies.
In terms of Afghanistan, Sweetland is not convinced that more troops are the answer. The US should instead support its allies in the region by helping with economic support, equipment, and training, he says.
Going into Afghanistan was the right call, he says, but "I'm not so sure about Iraq." He says that he's optimistic about the progress being made, but wants the US to start turning responsibility over to the Iraqis. He would base any decision on the advice of military leaders in charge of the operations.
He wants a "bipartisan, professional commission" to tackle health care. He's anti-abortion and, while he says that he believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman, that same-sex marriage "probably is a state issue."
Hawkins, a co-founder of the national Green Party, is something of a legendary figure in Syracuse politics. He's run for a number of offices there - including mayor and City Council - and since 1993 has appeared on the ballot every year except 1996 and 2003, says the Syracuse Post-Standard.
Much of his platform is standard Green Party fare. He wants a minimum wage that is a living wage, stronger rights for workers, universal single-payer health care, taxes on pollution, free public education through college, and an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. He'd like to see military spending cut and that money used to invest in green technology. He supports same-sex marriage and is pro-choice.
He didn't support the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. The government should get a stake in the banks it is propping up, he says.
"I think I'm standing for positions that most people in the district support," Hawkins says.
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