Immigration Foe Makes Run at Lowey

Press Release

Immigration foe makes run at Lowey

By Gerald McKinstry

She's a 10-term incumbent with a $1.1 million war chest.

He's a semiretired computer consultant with $19,000 in campaign debt from previous races and a candidate for a congressional district that spans parts of Westchester and Rockland counties in which there are 72,000 more Democrats than Republicans.
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So does Jim Russell, a conservative Republican running against Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, actually think he can win?

"I think she might be surprised what people are saying," Russell said last week in an interview with The Journal News. "It's a very unpredictable election season. If that picks up, there could be massive dissatisfaction.

"Twenty years of Nita Lowey is enough," he said. "I just don't think she's done a good job."

In addition to supporting congressional term limits - a maximum of four terms - Russell, 54, is campaigning on immigration reform; eliminating earmarks, the so-called pork for "local pet projects"; and promoting renewable energy sources throughout the Lower Hudson Valley.

It's his third run for Congress. Russell was unsuccessful in securing the GOP line twice before, though he ran as a write-in two years ago after losing the Republican primary.

Lowey, 71, was first elected in 1988. She serves on the House Appropriations Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, and she chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations.

She's secured millions for emergency responders, after-school programs, infrastructure projects and hospitals while making a priority of health and environmental matters like increasing funds for breast cancer research from $131 million to $1 billion in 10 years and cleaning up the Hudson River and Long Island Sound, she said.

"I work very closely with police, fire and EMT workers. The local challenges are enormous," Lowey said, citing roughly $55 million of homeland security money she's delivered for area departments and $20 billion for recovery efforts after Sept. 11, 2001. "We were successful in getting funds for the metropolitan New York region, which Westchester is a part of. We're all connected."

Given the recent news of a $700 billion federal bailout of Wall Street, Russell wants a package that first guarantees retirement accounts for American workers and helps those who were victims of predatory lending. He's also calling for an investigation to find out how the situation spun out of control.

"The most important is to guarantee the savings of working people," he said.

Lowey hasn't done "due diligence" in regulating the financial markets, in part, Russell alleges, because she receives significant campaign money - $135,300, according to the Center for Responsive Politics - from the securities industry.

"Nita Lowey is really in the midst of this," Russell said.

Lowey said "it's not surprising" that campaign money comes from that industry, based on the district's relatively high number of people working in securities. Given the amount she's raised - $1.2 million, according to Federal Election Commission figures, which included $949,166 spent as of Aug. 20 - the amount from the securities industry isn't all that high, she said. It's consistent with other industries and individuals who "share my priorities," she said.

More important, she said, was passing a financial rescue package that protects homeowners and retirement accounts, provides oversight and transparency, raises federal deposit insurance to $250,000 from $100,000 and gives taxpayers a stake in the purchase of assets. She said it would help "stabilize the economy" and prevent a credit crisis that affects so many businesses and residents in her district. The House of Representatives approved its economic stabilization bill Friday.

"Westchester County has thousands of people who work in many capacities on Wall Street, not just on the top," she said. "I have no illusions that we'll solve all the problems, but this is a step. This bill has come a long way from the $770 billion blank check … If he can find another solution that helps people, protects savings and retirement accounts, I wish he'd let me know."

Russell's central campaign issue is immigration reform, and he railed against what he perceived was Lowey's "unresponsiveness" to addressing it on a national level. A founder of Westchester-Rockland Citizens for Immigration Control and an author of a book on the issue, Russell said the matter affects many others including taxes, education and the economy.

He specifically wants those who are here illegally, particularly those who have been convicted of a crime, to be deported.

"Immigration is out of control in the district," Russell said. "She doesn't sense this as a pressing problem."

Lowey, a consistent critic of President Bush and his policies, supports "comprehensive immigration reform" that is "fair and practical." Though she supports deporting those who have been convicted of a crime, she said it's neither economical nor practical to "deport every undocumented immigrant in the country."

She supports reform that secures the borders and creates a path to citizenship for those who are working and paying taxes in this country, she said. She supported a bill that allocated $800 million this year to secure the borders and hire more agents, Lowey said.

Russell is also against globalization because it's "bad for the American economy" and wants the North American Free Trade Agreement overturned because he thinks too many jobs have been lost by the initiative.

On globalization and overturning NAFTA, Lowey responded: "We have to face the reality that Mexico is our neighbor. If he wants to send all the immigrants back, he should support NAFTA, which raises the wages and lifestyle of workers there."

"We're all interconnected," Lowey said.

Though Lowey and Russell found common ground in their support for developing renewable energy - wind, solar and other alternatives - they differ on Indian Point. He says it's unrealistic to close the nuclear power plant in Buchanan while she says it eventually should be closed.

"This plant is in the wrong place," she said. "We could close Indian Point and recoup much of the energy."

The 18th District includes most of central and southern Westchester, from the Bronx line north to Ossining, and parts of the towns of Haverstraw and Clarkstown in Rockland.

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