News 8 is reporting that Louise Slaughter will return to Washington on Sunday for the first time since she broke her leg in April.
Category Archives: News
Oh, Look, Something Happened
The firing of the director of the Monroe County Crime Lab, Janet Anderson-Seaquist, has Maggie Brooks on the defensive. Louise Slaughter’s office released a statement linking the firings to two scandals with the Airport director and the ROBUTRAD incident. Brooks’ weak defense is that her opponent is “playing politics”.
Since, as Clarke pointed out yesterday, every peep from the Brooks campaign has been about Brooks’ record in Monroe County rather than her position on national issues, it’s pretty weak sauce to complain when your opponent raises questions about trouble that happened on your watch. And Brooks’ statement that she fired Anderson-Seaquist the moment that she got the Inspector General’s report just raises the question of why it took a state investigation for Brooks to find out that her crime lab director told a pretty serious lie and mishandled a fair amount of evidence.
As News 10 points out, a California court ruling in 2011, a year after Anderson-Seaquist was appointed, was pretty scathing about Anderson-Seaquist “[making] things up as she went along”. Making stuff up becomes a lifelong habit, so this report makes me wonder whether the hiring process was mishandled by the Brooks administration.
Rachel Barnhart has some more details on the genesis of the Inspector General’s report, and points to this D&C piece on disagreements between the Crime Lab and the DA’s office. She also notes that defense attorneys approved of Anderson-Seaquist’s changes at the crime lab. Maybe Rachel has other information from her sources, but it sounds like the DA’s disagreement on some evidence was legitimate, and that the DA’s use of an outside testing lab proved they were right in at least one instance.
As with the firing of the last Airport Director, Brooks handled this one quickly and cleanly. Unless some new evidence comes up, I doubt this will have a major political impact on its own, since it doesn’t involve cigars, strippers or years of blatant political favors. But it does add one more to the list of personnel issues under Brooks’ watch, and that list was already long enough for Slaughter to name it as a serious issue this Fall.
(Photo by Clarke Condé.)
Maggie and Louise Agree
Jeremy Moule at City reports that Slaughter and Brooks’ positions on the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act are pretty much identical, which means that Brooks disagrees with House Republican leadership on this issue.
Another Brooks Messaging Mistake
Benjamin Wachs in the Gates-Chili Post:
Maggie Brooks says we’ll know how she’ll vote as a congresswoman by her record as a county executive. When I suggested that this actually leaves a lot to the imagination, her spokesman Noah Lebowitz scolded me in an email: “There is no confusion on how Maggie will govern in Congress.”
Wachs goes on to point out that trying to figure out how Brooks would vote in Congress is basically impossible from her record in Monroe County. He’s just another voice in the chorus making that same point, one that seems to escape those in charge of Brooks’ messaging.
Gay Marriage Claims Another Republican
Rachel Barnhart thinks that part of the reason State Senator Jim Alesi isn’t running for office is his support of gay marriage:
In what appeared to be a hastily made decision, he went on Capital Tonight and could barely choke out the words. The lawsuit he filed against constituents over his broken leg cost him voter support, but his same-sex marriage affirmation cost him party support. The GOP turned its back on Alesi with incredible speed.
Maggie Brooks won’t risk the ire of her party because she’s on record as one of the staunchest opponents of gay marriage in the state. In 2008, she pushed for an appeal of the landmark Martinez vs County of Monroe case, which held that a same-sex marriage established in another state is valid in New York. Since Jim Alesi’s vote in the Senate helped pass New York’s gay marriage law, this issue is no longer relevant to New York or Monroe County politics. But Brooks’ position on the matter is vitally important in her candidacy for Congress, since it’s likely that a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act will be on the agenda for the 113th Congress.
What’s an Editorial Board Good For?
Here’s a member of the D&C editorial board telling us that “Maggie Brooks’ silence on national issues is deafening” two days after City Newspaper reported that Maggie has taken a stand on Obamacare.
Apparently, the role of the Editorial Board is to manufacture the opinions held by the Democrat and Chronicle. That’s silly on its face–on the Internet, if there’s a surplus of anything other than porn, it’s opinions. But if you’re going to take on this fools’ errand, you should at least procure some of the raw material from which opinions are manufactured: facts.
By the way, there’s definitely a legitimate issue here, since Brooks is happy to tell a subscription-only DC insider publication her position on the issues, while staying mum about it on her website and in her public statements. In this case, the legitimate issue was obscured by bad execution on the part of the Editorial Board.
Slaughter’s Absenteeism
Lucy at Mustard Street caught the New York Times erasing this line about Slaughter’s voting record:
[she] had one of the worst attendance records in the House last year […]
Slaughter’s attendance record was poor last year because of family issues, and she’s missed more votes this year. As Lucy notes, the Buffalo News reported on this last year, and Slaughter’s attendance was the worst of the Western New York delegation.
I’m sure Brooks can turn this into a campaign issue, but the real traction on this issue is if someone can prove that Slaughter missed a vote where it would have mattered. Unfortunately, most of the votes that Congress takes are meaningless. There are a lot of Post Office names that are decided every session, and those filler votes are used to take up floor time while the leadership decides what’s going to hit the floor. When bills do hit the floor, most of what happens is on pretty strict party line votes. So I don’t think Brooks will be able to point to a specific missed vote.
When you vote for a Representative, you’re essentially voting for the policies of their party and for the power they hold. The power Slaughter holds is based on her seniority and committee membership. The Rules committee is generally considered the second most powerful committee in the House, and she’s the ranking member, which means that if Democrats take back Congress, she’ll lead it. If you don’t agree with Democrats on issues, you’re voting for Slaughter because of her power, and her attendance record doesn’t matter, since she’ll bring home the bacon whether or not she’s voting regularly. If you don’t agree with Democrats and you don’t care about power, then you’re voting for Maggie Brooks, who will almost certainly have perfect attendance. After all, that’s what Freshmen do, since they lack the power to do anything else on Capitol Hill but stick their card in voting slot.
News
Jeremy Moule reports something missing from the D&C’s man-on-the-street coverage, but far more relevant than the opinions of some random person from Penfield: Maggie Brooks took a position on Obamacare. She signed on to an anti-Obamacare op-ed in the subcription-only Roll Call magazine, hardly the most widely-read journal in the Rochester area, but the that cat is now out of the bag.
Today’s News
The Times has a race profile that concentrates on Louise Slaughter, who gets off a few good lines:
Ms. Slaughter said she hoped to leave the hospital soon, although her release date has been repeatedly delayed. Because of her leg, flying to Washington will be tough, so she is considering other options.
“I was going to see if Romney could transport me on the top of his car,” the congresswoman said from her wheelchair, a glint in her eye, in a reference to an episode in the life of the presumed Republican nominee. “What do you think my chances are?”
Slaughter also thinks that the race is going to be about her age.
Brian Tumulty at Gannett has an overview of the Independence Party endorsements, but the headline writer’s conclusion, that an Independence Party line boosts Republicans who get it, is questionable. I think these lines only matter to races when the party actually runs their own candidate. Otherwise, it’s hard to tell if voters are voting on that line because they like the candidate or if they want to support the party. I can’t find it at the moment, but when I do dig up Buffalopundit’s take on the Independence Party, I’ll link to it because he demonstrated how the party had devolved into an endorsement-purchasing racket in Erie County at least.
Finally, Some News
Louise Slaughter is being discharged from Strong Hospital on Friday. No word on when she’s returning to work, but she’s been working half days in the hospital so I guess it’s technically true that she is “back to work at the beginning of May” as was predicted earlier, but it’s clear that her injury was serious and she’s taking a while to recover.
Maggie Brooks’ new campaign office is open on East Avenue in Rochester. Maggie’s taking on a current county staffer (on leave of absence) to do her press, and a former staffer of Tom Reynolds to do fundraising.