Familiar lines of attack in debate
Faso chides Delgado for not moving into 19th District until ’17; Democrat says incumbent is too beholden to campaign donors
The two major-party candidates in New York’s 19th Congressional District race stuck to familiar themes in a Friday debate — Rep. John Faso saying Antonio Delgado is too new to the district to be its representative Washington, and Delgado accusing Faso of being influenced by campaign donors.
Faso, R-Kinderhook, and Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, faced off in an afternoon debate televised by Albany-area public television station WMHT.
“When I hear my opponent ... say I don’t have town halls [with constituents], maybe, perhaps, it’s because he doesn’t realize I had a town hall in this very [TV] studio last year, in April of ‘17, and we had a studio full of people who were here and listened and we debated the issues,” Faso said.
“When I had that town hall, he must of just been unpacking
his bags having moved here from New Jersey,” said Faso, who’s seeking a second term in the Nov. 6 election. “The fact of the matter is he moved in, he registered to vote, and the very next day, he filed to run for Congress, having no record or experience or job ever in this district as an adult.”
Delgado, who was born in Schenectady and is married to a Woodstock native, did not respond to Faso’s residency comments. The Democrat previously has said he moved to Rhinebeck in January 2017 and spent a lot of time in what is now the 19th District while growing up in Schenectady.
The district comprises all of Ulster, Greene, Columbia, Sullivan, Delaware, Schoharie and Otsego counties; most of Dutchess County; parts of Rensselaer and Montgomery counties; and a small piece of Broome County.
On the issue of campaign contributions, Delgado said Faso can’t be objective about legislation that aims to curb the nation’s opioid crisis because he accepts money from the pharmaceutical industry.
“You won’t hear Congressman Faso say we
must hold those pharmaceutical companies accountable because [he] takes money from those pharmaceutical companies,” Delgado said. “You will hear John Faso say ‘Let’s roll back Medicaid expansion,’ yet Medicaid funding is exactly what’s needed to fund drug treatment centers.”
Faso said he can hold pharmaceutical companies accountable and has a track record of supporting legislation intended to stem the opioid crisis.
“I was the lead sponsor of a bill that’s going to stem the flow of illegal substances like Fentanyl coming in through the U.S. Postal Service into this country,” he said. “The fact of the matter is, when you strip away the rhetoric on this issue, from my experience, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans on this issue in Washington.”
Regarding guns, Delgado also said Faso seems unable to grasp the anger among young people who are being targeted by people who illegally use firearms.
“We have gotten to a place in our society where there is a real gun epidemic,” he said. “You’ve got seven, eight kids dying a day from gun violence. You’ve got 17, 18 being hospitalized ... women
five times more likely to die in a domestic violence dispute when a gun is involved. We have mass shootings in schools, we have them in concert halls, we have it in too many places, and it’s happening at a clip that is just not tolerable.”
Delgado said Faso is indebted to the National Rifle Association because of its campaign contributions.
“We solve this problem by electing individuals who do not take money from the NRA,” Delgado said. “It’s that simple, and the congressman has taken thousands of dollars from the NRA.”
Faso accused Delgado of being opposed to the Second Amendment and overlooking legislation passed by the Republican-led Congress.
“I [supported] regulation that is about to be implemented to ban bump stocks, which were used in the Las Vegas shootings,” the congressman said. “We’ve closed the loophole that the Department of Defense did not properly perform the background check system on the dishonorably discharged veteran who was discharged because of domestic violence, who committed a church shooting in Texas, killing over 20 people. So there are restrictions that should be properly enforced.”
Faso also said Delgado is being disingenuous on this issue of campaign contributions because the Democrat has taken money from outside the 19th District.
On a related issued, Faso defended political action committees being allowed to protect the anonymity of donors.
“If local people, like realtors or people involved in our local economy, decide to contribute to me through a corporate PAC, that’s OK,” he said.
Delgado said allowing “unlimited amounts of money to pour into our system” goes beyond election assistance from small businesses.
“When you have 80 percent of the folks in this country sharing just 10 percent of the wealth, and you’ve got the top 10 percent capturing 75 percent of all the income ... that means just a handful of folks have access to our government,” he said. “That explains why we can’t get any real, comprehensive, bipartisan legislation done that benefits the vast majority of Americans.”
Friday’s debate did not include Green Party candidate Steve Greenfield, a New Paltz resident, or independent candidate Diane Neal, a TV actor who lives in Hurley.