New York: Twentieth District

Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D) Elected 2006, 1st term up
Born:	12-09-1966, Albany
Home:	Hudson
Education:	Dartmouth Col., A.B. 1988, U.C.L.A., J.D. 1991
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Jonathan)
Professional Career:	Practicing atty, 1991-2006; special counsel, HUD, 2000.
DC Office	120 CHOB, 20515 202-225-5614 Fax: 202-225-1168 Website: gillibrand.house.gov
State Offices	Glen Falls:518-743-0964; Hudson:518-828-3109; Saratoga Springs:518-581-8247;
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The Hudson River, an avenue of commerce in colonial days, an inspiration to artists in the federal republic, is still one of America’s great sights, though it is no longer central, as it was not so long ago, to the nation’s consciousness and politics. The classic mansions overlooking the river, like Clermont, whose builder Robert Livingston financed Robert Fulton’s first steamboat, and Montgomery Place, built by Janet Livingston Montgomery, widow of the general who attacked Quebec in 1775, are reminders of the cool serenity of the 18th century mind and the daring nature of its spirit. Robert Livingston (whose descendants include Eleanor Roosevelt, former Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey and former Congressman Bob Livingston of Louisiana) administered the first oath of office to George Washington in 1789 and helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. It was on a visit to his lands in the 1790s that James Madison and Aaron Burr welded the Virginia-New York alliance that set the course of American political history. The Hudson was also a center of America during the Romantic Era: From Frederick Church’s Moorish mansion, Olana, you can see the still unspoiled river landscape that inspired his art and that of others of the Hudson River school of painters. Later, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz and his wife, the painter Georgia O’Keeffe, drew inspiration from the mountains and placid waters in Lake George, where they had a summer home.

The Hudson gave birth to America’s passionate party politics. Nearby is Kinderhook, home of Martin Van Buren, the innkeeper’s son who in alliance with Andrew Jackson invented the torchlight parade, the national party convention and, some argue, the Democratic party itself. Later in the 19th century, the Hudson was lined with the palaces of the nation’s first great millionaires and the comfortable country homes of New York’s gentry. One of the latter, Springwood in Hyde Park, was the birthplace and home of Franklin D. Roosevelt; this politician, who expanded government at home and was the victorious commander-in-chief of American military forces throughout the world, was most comfortable looking out over his sloping lawn down to the river on which he remembered iceboating during the winters of the 1880s.

The sprawling 20th Congressional District of New York clamps around the Albany metro area and includes much of the Hudson Valley—the grand river south of Albany and the smaller river, freshly fed by the Adirondacks, to the north. It includes four full counties (Warren, Washington, Columbia and Greene), most of Saratoga County, and parts of five others (Dutchess, Essex, Rensselaer, Delaware and Otsego). The northern extreme of the 20th extends right up to Lake Placid in the Adirondacks, site of the 1980 Winter Olympics. The southern extreme in Dutchess County is close enough for commuters from New York to travel back and forth regularly. Just to the north is Columbia County, where urban New Yorkers go to introduce their children to “the country.” The district extends west just short of Cooperstown, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, but it includes Oneonta, home of the less well-known National Soccer Hall of Fame; it also includes Saratoga Springs with its grand race track and the nearby battlefield where the British were decisively stopped in 1777. Despite Van Buren and Roosevelt, this has been a Republican area since the birth of the Republican Party; indeed, Roosevelt never carried his home territory except when he ran for state Senate in 1910. The 20th was one of only six New York districts to vote for George W. Bush in 2000 and one of nine to vote for him in 2004.

The new congresswoman from the 20th District is Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat elected in 2006. She comes from a politically sophisticated family: her father was an attorney and lobbyist with ties to George Pataki; her grandmother was a prominent Democratic activist in Albany who brought Gillibrand along with her on the campaign trail. Gillibrand attended an all-girls prep school in Troy and graduated from Dartmouth College, where she majored in Asian studies. She traveled widely, worked a summer for Republican Senator Alfonse D’Amato, went to law school at UCLA, and did a United Nations internship in Vienna, Austria. After law school, Gillibrand clerked for a federal appeals court judge and served briefly as special counsel under Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, before going to work for a major New York City law firm.

Gillibrand’s run for Congress appeared improbable when she launched her campaign for Congress in 2005. The incumbent was four-term John Sweeney, a rising Republican star with a seat on the Appropriations Committee, who had never had a serious reelection challenge. As the campaign progressed, Sweeney showed signs of rust and faced other distractions. Sweeney took leave from House voting for several weeks after he was hospitalized in February 2006 for treatment of vasculitis, a brain inflammation condition. He also had to contend with negative press surrounding two ski trips, a fundraising event in Utah that included dinner at the home of a pharmaceutical lobbyist and another that he took at state expense. In April 2006, he drew unflattering headlines after making a convivial visit to a college fraternity party; Sweeney denied college newspaper reports that he had been intoxicated. The state Democratic party issued a press release asking, “What is a 50-year-old congressman doing at a frat party at 1 a.m.?”

As late as August, polls showed Sweeney with a solid lead. But Gillibrand’s aggressive campaign put Sweeney on the defensive. In TV ads, Sweeney accused her campaign of making anonymous and intimidating phone calls to his wife. Underscoring his charge that Gillibrand was a carpetbagger, he claimed that her actual residence was a Manhattan high-rise. Gillibrand demanded that he release police reports from his two prior arrests—one in 1977 and one in 1978—and from a 2001 automobile accident; he called on her to release her income-tax records. In August, the liberal group MoveOn.org weighed in with ads against Sweeney. Sweeney emphasized his independence and contrasted his working class background with Gillibrand’s prep school pedigree.

In October, Sweeney faced the specter of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, when it was revealed that he had asked the House Ethics Committee for guidance on whether to amend a disclosure report for a 2001 trip he took to the Northern Mariana Islands with Tony Rudy, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the scandal. In a year in which Hillary Clinton and Eliot Spitzer were heading to landslide statewide victories and Republicans struggled under the drag of the unpopular Bush administration, Sweeney had little margin for error; then came a late-breaking revelation of a domestic disturbance that doomed his campaign. One week before the election, the Albany Times Union reported that Sweeney’s wife had called local police in December 2005 to complain that the congressman was “knocking her around.” Sweeney’s campaign at first insisted that the police report on the incident was “false and concocted by our opposition,” but local newspapers had pursued the story for 10 months and the campaign conceded that state police were called to their home.

Sweeney had spent $3.4 million to Gillibrand’s $2.6 million; Gillibrand came out on top and won 53%-47%. After the election, Gillibrand began posting the “Sunlight Report” of her daily schedule, which included meetings with lobbyists (though her schedule was not quite so prominently displayed as freshman Montana Democratic Senator Jon Tester, who followed a similar practice). Anticipating a competitive reelection challenge, she raised $668,000 in her first 3 months in office and launched aggressive constituent outreach efforts that included holding office hours outside grocery stores. Colleagues close to Sweeney said after the election the Democrats’ personal attacks and his health problems had drained him, but through mid-2007 Sweeney had not ruled out a comeback attempt. Other potential Republican candidates included former New York Republican Party Chairman Alexander Treadwell and Richard Wager, an aide to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the son of a former Poughkeepsie Journal publisher.

Committees

• Agriculture (18th of 25 D)
  Livestock, Dairy & Poultry; Horticulture & Organic Agriculture; Conservation, Credit, Energy & Research.
• Armed Services (28th of 34 D)
  Seapower & Expeditionary Forces; Terrorism, Unconventional Threats & Capabilities.

Presidential Vote

District Demographics (More Info)

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R + 3
• Area size: 7,200 square miles
• Urban Population: 44.9%
• Rural Population: 55.1%
• Population 2000: 654,360
• Population 2005 (est): 682,472
• Median Income: $44,239
• Poverty Status: 7.9%
• Military Veterans: 14.3%
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 93.4% White; 2.4% Black; 0.8% Asian; 0.2% Native Am.; 0.0% Hawaiian; 0.9% Two+ races; 0.1% Other; 2.2% Hispanic Origin;
• Ancestry: 15.1% Irish%; 11.8% German%; 9.8% Italian%;
• Occupation: Blue collar 22.7%; White collar 61.1%; Gray collar 16.2%;