U.S. Rep. Bill Owens (left) is facing a challenge from Republican Doug Hoffman (center) in a rematch of last year’s special election. Newcomer Matt Doheny (right) is also challenging Owens for his Congressional seat.
A freshman Democratic incumbent, an accountant and an investment portfolio manager are voters’ options for the 23rd Congressional District in 2010.
The election also features a rematch between the incumbent, U.S. Rep. Bill Owens, D-Plattsburgh, and Republican Doug Hoffman, who is an accountant from Lake Placid In 2008, the race between Owens and Hoffman drew national attention for its bitterness, big spending and and outside activists.
The economy will also play a big role in the election, with all of the candidates listing jobs as their top priority.
As of early April, the third candidate is another Republican challenger, Matt Doheny, a Watertown business investor.
The primaries are Sept. 14, 2010. The general election is Nov. 2, 2010.
The 23rd Congressional District is made up of 11 counties just north of Syracuse up to Canada. It includes the northern part of the state and part of Central New York. Until last year, it was historically a Republican-held district.
Owens, now the incumbent, was the first Democrat to win the seat in 157 years. In 2009, he won in a special election to fulfill the remaining term of then-U.S. Rep. John McHugh, R-Pierrepont, whom President Barrack Obama named the new Army secretary. McHugh had held the 23rd Congressional District seat since 1993..
The special election was one of the nation’s most contentious, attracting national attention. It was one of the few contested Congressional races in 2009. It split the Republican Party between moderate andconservative voters.
That split was vivid when the candidate nominated by the GOP, Dede Scozzafava, the assemblywoman of Gouverneur, withdrew from the race under attack from rival Doug Hoffman, a favorite of the GOP’s conservative wing and the Tea Party movement. In a twist to party politics, Scozzafava threw her support to Democrat and eventual winner Bill Owens.
The drama was unusual, said Danny Hayes, a political science professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University, in an e-mail interview. “All of that made for unusual circumstances, which is what generated so much interest around the state and country,” he said.
For the 2010 election, Hayes predicts less national interest because all 435 House seats and one-third of the Senate are on the ballot. Still, Hayes said, he expects the race to be interesting. Owens will be under fire especially for voting with the majority of Democrats in favor of the healthcare overhaul legislation.
“Owens, for the Democrats, will have to make a strong case to the district’s voters that he has represented their interests well over the last year,” Hayes said. “Especially given the strong feelings some people have about the health care bill — which Owens voted for — the campaign could see some fireworks.”
The Republicans will have a chance to win back the district this year’s election depending on which candidate they nominate, Hayes predicted. “The district voted for Obama in 2008, but it’s certainly not liberal,” Hayes said. “So the GOP could win the seat back. But to do so, their candidate, whomever that turns out to be, will have to be acceptable to the many moderate Republican voters in the district. An extremely conservative candidate could help Owens retain the seat.”
Kristi Andersen, also a Maxwell School political science professor, agreed that the Rpublicans have a very good chance of winning back the seat. “It’s a traditionally Republican district and Owens will only have served a year, and is therefore vulnerable,” she said.
As of April 1, 2010 the district had 122,669 Democrats; 166,827 Republicans; 77,376 unaffiliated voters and 29,255 voters in third parties.
Here’s an early look at the three candidates:
Bill Owens (Democrat, incumbent)
Owens, a lawyer from Plattsburgh, ran for office for the first time last year in the special election for McHugh’s seat.
Owens, 61, has lived in Plattsburgh and upstate New York for more than 30 years. He and his wife, Jane, have been married more than 36 years. They have three grown children and four grandchildren. Owens got a bachelor’s degree from Manhattan College and his law degree from Fordham University.
His family has a long military tradition. His great grandfather served in the civil war, his uncle served in World War 1 and his father served in World War II. Owens was in the Air Force for seven years and left with the rank of captain. In the Air Force, he was a lawyer he defended members of the military in military court. In the House, he sits on the Armed Services Committee and the House Committee on Homeland Security.
Owens credits his decision to run last year and then again this year for re-election to timing. “I felt that I was in a position in my life that I could do a lot of good for the community,” Owens said.
Like his challengers, Owens highlights the economy as his top priority. He supports giving tax credits to employers who create rural jobs. He also supports an expansion of business-depreciation tax credit. Now businesses can only write off from their taxes depreciation up to $250,000. Owens supports allowing unlimited depreciation write-offs for a any company that creates at least one new job for every $100,000 depreciated. .
He also calls for creating jobs by bringing businesses from Canada into New York. In Clinton County, he said, he helped bring about 200 companies from Canada. This created about 200,000 jobs, he said.
On health care, Owens voted yes to the healthcare overhaul signed into law in March by President Barack Obama. He voted for the measure, he said on his Web site, because he feels it will help families afford health care. The law requires everyone to have insurance and provides subsidies to defray the costs for those who can’t afford to purchase it on their own, don’t get insurance from their employers or who don’t qualify for public health insurance for the poor. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the law will expand coverage to 37 million previously uninsured Americans.
Douglas Hoffman (Republican, challenger)
Hoffman, a public accountant, decided to run for Congress in the 2009 special election when his clients complained to him that they were “sick and tired” of their taxes, said Rob Ryan, Hoffman’s spokesman.
Hoffman is running again, Ryan said, for much the same reason. “The main reason for running is to change the culture of corruption and spending other people’s money,” said Ryan.
Hoffman, 60, grew up in Saranac Lake where he lived with his single mother and three siblings. At age 14, he got his first steady job at a gas station to help his mom pay the family’s bills. after graduating from Saranac Regional High School, he went to college for accounting at North Country Community College, SUNY Canton and SUNY Plattsburgh. After school, he served in the New York State National Guard and the Army Reserves for six years. He earned an MBA from the University of Connecticut and has been a certified public accountant since 1977.
Before the 1980 Olympics, Hoffman moved to host-city Lake Placid and was in charge of the budget for the Olympic games. He is now a managing partner of an accounting firm. He and is wife, Carol, have three children and four grandchildren, according to his Web site.
In his campaign this time, Hoffman also singles out the economy as the most important issue, said Ryan, Hoffman’s spokesman. Hoffman calls for more support for Fort Drum, the district’s largest employer. He often vows to keep Fort Drum in the district, raising the specter that the military base is threatened with closure. But his spokesman Ryan acknowledges that base is not now under threat.
To clean up what he calls “corruption,” Hoffman also proposes restrictions on “earmarks” — special spending designations — that members ofCongress put into the federal budget.
On creating jobs, spokesman Ryan cited Hoffman’s own experience as a businessman. He has created 13 small businesses in his district and will use that experience to create more jobs, Ryan said. Hoffman will also support legislation that lowers taxes and reduce regulations on creating businesses, Ryan added. He also plans to highlight the needs of small businesses inCongress, Ryan said.
On health care reform, Hoffman opposes the recent overhaul to expand coverage. He sees it as an unnecessary government intrusion into the private healthcare market, said spokesman Ryan.
In the 1990s, Hoffman got his start in politics as the Republican town chairman in North Elba in the 1990s.
Matt Doheny (Republican, challenger)
At age 39, Doheny is the youngest of the candidates. He pitches his comparative youthfulness as an asset in the race. “I want to bring youth and optimism to the government and the 23rd Congressional District,” he said.
Doheny describes himself as a “self-made man” who’s living his version of the American dream. He went to public school at Alexandria Bay, where he grew up with his parents and younger brother. His dad, a traveling salesman, and his mom, who was on town boards and a stay-at-home mom, helped pay for his college at Allegheny College, partly with loans. He put himself through law school at Cornell, he said.
Doheny works as a portfolio manager for Fintech Advisory.
If elected, he said, he plans to limit government spending and give more funding to the military. “The government can’t be everything for everyone,” he said. “You can’t overreach. The government needs to do core functions and do them well.”
Doheny defines the core functions as the military and police who protect the people; the courts, which help keep order; social safety nets and public works and infrastructure. He supports social safety-net programs, he said, only for people who cannot support themselves because of disabilities. Public works and infrastructure are things people can’t do on their own, he said. Some examples are treating sewage, and maintaining or building roads and bridges, he said.
The first program he would cut, he said, is the Troubled Asset Relief Program. TARP is legislation enacted in the recession to bailout banks and other financial institutions to stave off bankruptcy in the mortgage and credit crisis. He views the program as a waste of government spending and that the private sector could handle it better, Doheny said.
He supports the military, Doheny said, because “the first job of the federal government is to protect the country.” He calls for maintaining or increasing spending on the military and on services for veterans. He promised to make sure veterans’ hospitals get adequate funding to take care of injured veterans.
“These people have lost limbs serving over seas,” Doheny said. “They deserve the best care we can give them.”
(Katrina Koerting is a junior with dual majors in newspaper and political science.)
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