Catching a wave in upstate New York?

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

Syracuse, N.Y. - Will would-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have a majority of ten, 20 or 40 when the new Congress meets next January? This assumes Democrats get what they’re hoping for: an electoral wave that topples the Republican majority on Nov. 7.

If the wave develops, one place you’ll be able to spot it is here in upstate New York.

The 'Senior Appropriator'
But are the Democrats mistaken if they think that their wave will be powerful enough to overcome such a well-entrenched incumbent as Rep. James Walsh?

Walsh, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee –- “New York’s senior appropriator” as he calls himself -- brings millions of federal dollars home to New York's 25th congressional district.

Since his first election in 1988, he has never won by less than 55 percent.

In language that would appall fiscal conservatives, Walsh calls himself “an absolute believer” in earmarks –- items in spending bills designated to help a particular congressional district. And he especially defends New York earmarks, whether they’re for Syracuse or for Carnegie Hall in New York City or for a harbor project in Buffalo.

The family business
Politics is something of a family franchise for him: Walsh’s father served as mayor of Syracuse for eight years and Walsh’s brother and sister are both elected judges in Onondaga County, which includes Syracuse. His congressional district is the latter-day version of the one that his father represented from 1973 to 1978.

“People have given us their trust and we’ve honored that trust,” Walsh said.

Enter the competititon
In Onondaga County, the most populous county in this district, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry won 54 percent of the vote in 2004.  Yet no Democrat even bothered to run against Walsh.

But this year Democrat Dan Maffei is running and evoking the wave year of 1974, when Democrats thrived on the Watergate scandal to gain 49 House seats.

“It’s essential we have some sort of a wave to increase people’s awareness, particularly progressive voters’ awareness, that there is a congressional race and a real campaign here,” Maffei said in an interview at the Little Gem Diner in Syracuse Monday night.

He added that “Hillary (Sen. Hillary Clinton) and (gubernatorial candidate Eliot) Spitzer being on the ticket is a great help.”

“The idea that Jim Walsh can’t be beat has become a self-fulfilling prophecy – he can’t be beat if nobody runs against him,” said Maffei. “The reason Walsh does so well is because a lot of his constituents don’t know how he votes.”

Rating the incumbent
So how does Walsh vote?

Last year, he supported President Bush 86 percent of the time on roll call votes on which the Bush administration took a position. He’s also voted:
• For a private-school voucher program in the District of Columbia;
• For a constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriages;
• For federal court intervention in the Terri Schiavo case;
• For the Medicare prescription drug entitlement;
• Against federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

And unlike first-term Republican Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington state, who switched from voting against federal funding to voting for the override of Bush’s veto of it last month, Walsh stuck with his initial position and voted ‘no’ on the veto override.

Walsh advocates federal funds for medical research using umbilical cord stem cells, not embryos.

Bipartisan emphasis
On the face of it, most of these votes might seem to put Walsh rather to the right of an electorate that voted for Kerry.

Yet Walsh has weathered Democratic assaults for the past 18 years.

And, as many Republicans do this year, he emphasizes his bipartisanship. “I’m not considered to be a terribly partisan person and Appropriations is not a real partisan committee,” he said Tuesday. “It’s more of an ‘us appropriators against the world’ kind of thing.”

He even has kind words for Sen. Clinton. “She and I work very well together,” he said. Asked if he thinks Clinton has done a good job for Onondaga County, he replies, “I do.”

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