U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri (left) faces challenges to his Congressional seat from businessman Richard Hanna (center) and National Guard Sgt. Logan Bell (right).
A Democratic incumbent from Utica. A Republican who owns a construction company. And a National Guard sergeant.
Those are voters’ choices for the House of Representatives from the 24th Congressional District in the 2010 election.
The incumbent Democrat is Michael Arcuri of Utica, who’s represented the district since 2006. The Republican is Richard Hanna of Barneveld, who owns his own construction company in Utica called Central New York Construction. The independent, unaffiliated with any party, is ErnestLogan Bell, who is a sergeant in the National Guard.
The 24th District in New York includes Chenango, Cortland, Herkimer and Seneca counties and parts of Broome, Cayuga, Oneida, Ontario, Otsego, Tioga and Tompkins counties.
As of early April, neither the Republican nor Democratic parties had officially announced their nominations. If more than one candidate seeks a party’s nomination, the candidates will face each other in a primary election to choose the party nominee. The primary elections are on Sept. 14, 2010. The general election will be Nov. 2, 2010.
Some of the issues now swirling around the midterm election include the recent enactment of major healthcare overhaul legislation and the up-and-coming intensely conservative Tea Party movement.
But party loyalty is more likely to shape voters’ choices, says Bruce Shefrin, political science professor at Le Moyne College. “Local elections are being determined more by the person’s party affiliation,” said Shefrin, “rather than if he is a nice guy that you want to have a beer with.”
Democrats now control the House and the Senate. So the Democratic candidates are likely to be judged by their collective Congressional actions, said Shefrin. And, he says, the Republicans are going to hold them to that record in this upcoming election.
The midterm elections are more a confrontation between parties rather than about each individual candidate, says Shefrin. Many of the issues pertinent to the candidates are still likely to change in the months prior to the election, he said. “It depends upon what plays out in the next five months or so in terms of what issue is prominent and motivating people,” says Shefrin.
After a year-long partisan battle in Congress, President Barack Obamasigned a major healthcare overhaul bill into law on March 23, 2010. The $938-billion bill is designed to expand insurance coverage to 37 million Americans without insurance, stop insurance companies from refusing to cover those with pre-existing ailments and provide subsidies for those can’t afford the law’s required health coverage.
No Republican voted for the law and it has angered conservatives, including those in the Tea Party movement.
Democratic incumbent Michael Arcuri voted against the measure. He was one of only 34 Democrats who opposed the bill. He has been mildly applauded by Republicans and some other conservatives. But many Democrats and other liberals are outraged by his opposition of the expansion of healthcare coverage.
But, said political scientist Shefrin, the healthcare legislation may not be the most prominent issue by election time. If it is, he says, how people vote will depend on how they were educated about the bill. Arcuri’s vote against the bill may not matter much, suggested Shefrin.
“My guess is that, that won’t necessarily save him if there is an anti-Democratic wave,” says Shefrin. Arcuri’s affiliation with the Democratic Party will be the most significant factor in this election, he says.
On the other hand, said Shefrin, “The Republican candidate could have problems if Republicanism gets too tied to the Tea Party movement.” The movement alienates more moderate Republicans because it is based on such fierce conservative values.
In Congress, Democrats control both the House and the Senate. In the House, Democrats have 253 seats to 177 for Republicans. In the midterm election, all 435 House seats are up for election. In the Senate, 36 of 100 seats are up for election, with each party defending 18 seats. For Democrats, the midterm elections put at risk their control of Congress.
In the 24th Congressional District, more Republicans are registered to vote than Democrats, according to the New York State Board of Elections. Republicans have 40 percent of registered voters, or 150,000. Democrats have 34 percent, or 126,000 registered voters.
Here are sketches of the potential candidates:
Michael Arcuri (Democrat, incumbent)
Democratic incumbent Michael Arcuri has not officially announced his candidacy yet. “We are not sure yet when we will announce,” Arcuri said in a telephone interview on April 8. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Even though Arcuri has not formally announced his candidacy, incumbents rarely step down so early in their Congressional careers. And he has a robust campaign money chest. As of December 2009, Arcuri had $415,292 cash on hand, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Arcuri, 50, was elected to Congress in 2006 and is running for a third term. Before he was elected to Congress, Arcuri was district attorney in Oneida County for 13 years. He was born and raised in Utica. He is a graduate of SUNY Albany, where he played football. He is also a graduate of New York Law School in New York City. Arcuri and his wife, Sabrina, have three children: C.J., 19; Dominique, 15; and Nicholas, 11.
In the House, he serves on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Rules Committee.
Among his accomplishments in the House, Arcuri cites helping to stop a controversial major power-line project in the district and co-sponsoring the Cash for Clunkers program to jump-start auto sales.
In the controversial power-line project, New York Regional Interconnect Inc. was applying for federal permission to run power lines from Utica to the bottom of Orange County in southern New York. Because of pressure from Congress, the company withdrew its application, Arcuri said.
Arcuri co-sponsored the Cash for Clunkers program, which ran throughout the summer of 2009. The program sparked auto sales by giving buyers rebates if they replaced older cars with more fuel-efficient models.
On his vote against the healthcare overhaul, Arcuri says he had serious questions about how the overhaul would be paid for. And the measure had strong opposition among voters in the 24th Congressional District. “As the only representative in this district,” says Arcuri, “I have to listen to my constituents.”
If re-elected, Arcuri says, he would like to push for more money to fund the Empire Corridor high-speed rail project. The corridor stretches 462 miles from New York City through the Hudson Valley to Albany and along to Buffalo. The state has already funded improvements to tracks in part of the system that would allow some passenger trains to travel at speeds of 110 mph, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
In the 2008 election, Arcuri ran as the candidate for both the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party. The Working Families Party is a liberal group that supports such policies as paid family leave and healthcare for all.
Arcuri’s vote against the healthcare bill has cost him the Working Families Party’s support. “We certainly won’t be supporting Arcuri again,” says Dan Levitan, spokesman for the Working Families Party of New York. In the 24th District, the Working Families Party has about 1,500 registered voters.
But Le Moyne political scientist Bruce Shefrin says loss of the Working Families Party support could work in Arcuri’s favor in his Republican-leaning district. “It gives him credibility with moderates,” says Shefrin. “It means he is not the darling of the left wing.”
Richard Hanna (Republican, challenger)
As he recalls it, Richard Hanna never thought he would run for public office — until 2008 when he first challenged Arcuri.
“I ran as an independent guy who is interested in solutions,” Hanna said in a recent interview. “I am just not the typical candidate and made no effort to be one.”
For 2010, he is hoping to run on the Republican, Conservative andIndependence Party lines.
Hanna, 58, was born and raised in New York. He graduated from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, with a degree in economics. He has lived in Barneveld for 25 years. Hanna owns a construction company called Central New York Construction. He and his wife, Kim, have two young children, Emerson and Grace.
In his campaign, Hanna cites as major issues the poor economy and lack of jobs, the healthcare system, Social Security, the $819-billion federal stimulus package and the Iraq war.
On the economy and jobs, Hanna calls for special attention to young people, who are leaving the area because of the poor economy and lack of jobs. “There are so many great intuitions here. Yet they can’t build a life here. They can’t build a career here,” says Hanna.
On healthcare, Hanna calls for more focus on costs. “If we don’t fix the cost associated with health care, we have done ourselves a disservice,” says Hanna. The recent healthcare legislation, Hanna says, is probably not the best economic solution to healthcare costs.
On the stimulus package created by the Obama Administration to ease the recession, Hanna says it was badly managed and poorly spent. Much of the stimulus money went into tax credits for job hiring, according towww.recovery.gov , a government Web site that tracks stimulus money.
In his business, Hanna says, he has never hired anyone for $40,000 or $50,000 just because the government gave him money to do it. “It isn’t the government’s job to create jobs and opportunity. It’s the government’s job to create the environment for them,” said Hanna.
On the Iraq war, Hanna says it was a mistake. He expresses respect for those who’ve died in the war. But, he said, there was not enough justification for the war.
Logan Bell (No party, challenger)
Ernest Logan Bell, 25, of Lansing is making his first run for public office. He’s gone into politics, he says, because of the shortfalls of other politicians.
“I don’t believe the issues that are important to me are being talked about,” says Bell.
As the youngest candidate, Bell says, some issues are specific to the younger generation. Among them, he said, are the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, healthcare and high taxes. “I believe these issues are very important to the younger generation because we are inheriting this mess,” says Bell.
Logan Bell — he prefers to drop his first name of Ernest — is originally from Texas, where he worked in construction. In 2008, he came to Lansing, to be closer to his young daughter, Shianne Rose Bell, and plans on staying, he said.
In 2007, Bell was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after serving four years and returned to Texas to form Bell Real Estate Group Inc. He is now a sergeant in the Army National Guard. On recent duty at Fort Benning in Georgia, Bell competed in the 2010 Army National Guard Combative Championships.
Bell is a member of the conservative Constitution Party. It advocates limiting the federal government to what the party considers the government’s constitutional values.
In his first announcements of his candidacy, Bell had declared an interest in running as the nominee of the Republican and Conservative parties. Now, he said in an interview in early April, he is running as what he calls a “true independent” and is not seeking an endorsement from any party.
On the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq launched by the George W. Bush Administration, Bell argues that these were unconstitutional acts. The troops in those countries are serving only as police officers, he says, and that is not their job.
The wars also ares costing the taxpayers too much money, he said. “Economically it’s killing us,” says Bell. ”The cost of rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan on the back of the American people is not acceptable.”
On the passage of the healthcare bill, Bell is not optimistic that the law will help the American people. The healthcare overhaul will cost more down the road, he predicts. The law will benefit the insurance companies in the short term, he argues, because Americans will see higher prices and more government control of the economy. Healthcare should be run at the state level rather than at the federal level, he says.
On the issue of taxes, Bell says, he would like to see taxes lowered. The federal government, he says, should consider getting rid of the income tax, especially for people who are in the lowest tax bracket. People should be able to keep more of their own money, says Bell, and that way it could encourage economic growth.
Bell officially kicked off his campaign on Saturday, April 3, by starting to walk though every major city in the district.
“The best way is to walk door to door, through the towns so people can come out and talk to me and see who I am, what I do and what I represent,” says Bell. “And I hope to share my message of peace and the limits of government.”
(Kara Labs is a graduate student in broadcast journalism.)
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