For an upstart candidate, Christina Fadden Fitch is gaining an impressive list of endorsements for the 119th Assembly District seat.
“Energetically reform-minded candidate,” as The Post-Standard put it in its endorsement. And that theme echoes from across a broad range of Syracuse political culture.
Republican Fitch is challenging Democrat incumbent Joan Christensen to represent representing the 119th District in the New York state Assembly. The district includes Salina, DeWitt and parts of the city of Syracuse. Fitch is also running under a Conservative ticket.
Fitch did not respond to 12 requests for interviews for this story.
A native of central New York, Fitch was raised in Liverpool. After attending Liverpool High School and Eastman School of Music, she did post-graduate study at Indiana University in social psychology. Fitch lives in Liverpool with her daughter, Shannon. Christina Fitch’s father, Henry Fadden, practiced law in Liverpool for 50 years.
Until recently, Fitch was the assistant executive director for the New York State Right to Life Committee. She worked for the group for four years and left the job in early 2008. Her campaign Web site says she also has worked for a foreign exchange program in Central New York and has taught music. The Web site also lists her community activities as Girl Scouts, National Arbor Day Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, and American Legion Auxiliary Unit 188.
Those who endorse Fitch see her stance on small business as advantageous, her personality as charismatic and her approach as refreshing. Fitch’s endorsements include the Onondaga County Republican Party; the Onondaga County Conservative Party; the non-partisan government organization, Responsible New York; the New York state chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors; The Post-Standard and Syracuse Tomorrow, the PAC for Syracuse Chamber of Commerce.
Deborah Warner, spokeswoman for Syracuse Tomorrow, praised Fitch’s support for small business. “We’re not talking about conglomerates,” she said. “We’re talking about small mom-and-pop businesses.” Those businesses, she said, are concerned with affordable healthcare, time off to deal with family emergencies, and reasonable property taxes for their employees.
Fitch displayed an understanding of technologies that would help keep young workers in central New York, said Warner, and what kinds of taxes hurt small businesses the most. “She really reflected an understanding for small businesses,” Warner said. “She doesn’t have legislative experience, but she did her research.”
Another Fitch endorser, the Onondaga County Conservative Party, based much of its decision on Fitch’s personal charisma. Austin Olmsted, chairman of the party, praised her public-speaking ability and what he described as her thoughtful responses. She will be able to bring a new level of dialogue to the assembly, he said.
One of Fitch’s former teachers, John Ianotta, describes Fitch as someone who commands and gives respect. Ianotta, a music instructor at Liverpool High School, taught Fitch when she attended Liverpool and he has contributed money to her campaign. He remembers her as hardworking, disciplined and respectful.
“She never sat back and wasted time,” Ianotta said. “She was one of the most disciplined students I ever had. She was highly respected by her peers and the faculty.”.
Ianotta also likes Fitch simply because she isn’t incumbent Joan Christensen. He checks the voting records each year and he said he never agrees with the way his representative voted. “We just don’t think the same,” he said.
Another contributor to Fitch’s campaign is Terry McHugh, who agreed with Ianotta in his displeasure with Christensen’s performance. “We’ve had the same old thing for forever,” McHugh said. He hopes Fitch wins, he said, because he doesn’t see her as a politician. “She’ll listen to people,” McHugh said. In criticizing Christensen, he added, “It seems like once you become elected your hearing becomes affected.”
In its endorsement of Fitch, The Post-Standard sounded a similar theme of disappointment with incumbent Christensen. “Christensen has had ample opportunity to help build a reform coalition in the Assembly. It is time to give a new, energetically reform-minded candidate a chance,” the newspaper said. “Fitch fits that bill.”
Still, Fitch has an uphill fight against Christensen. Statistically, challengers beat incumbents only about 10 percent of the time.
But Christensen is not ignoring Fitch entirely, say other Democrats. Diane Dwire, head of the Onondaga County Democratic Party, says that Christensen isn’t taking anything for granted. “Any time there is an opponent we take it very seriously. I know Joan is taking it very seriously. She’s out there campaigning and doing the door-to-door stuff,” Dwire said.
Fitch’s top issues:
Taxes: Fitch’s Web site says she believes the middle class is suffering from over-taxation. She supports capping the school property tax. She also wants to eliminate the state gas tax, to help deal with rising gas prices. She told The Post-Standard that she is in favor of a tax cap that would prevent property taxes from rising more than 4 percent per year. “The best thing the state can do is to reduce the excessive taxes burdening daily life and the economy — property taxes, gas taxes, business taxes, etc.,” Fitch said to The Post-Standard in a survey published on the newspaper’s Web site.
Economy: Fitch wants to put a stop to what she considers high spending by the state. She calls for stimulating the local economy by focusing on small businesses as job generators.
Abortion: Fitch is decidedly anti-abortion but has not made it a centerpiece of her Assembly campaign. In an anti-abortion march in downtown Syracuse in January, she sharply criticized Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established a woman’s right to legal abortion. “It was an awful tide that swept in our culture the day Roe v. Wade was handed down,” she was quoted by The Post-Standard as saying at the march, “A tide that said death was OK.”
(Susanna McElligott is a senior with dual majors in newspaper and art history.)
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