The race for New York’s 19th Congressional District features a rematch from 2022.
First-term incumbent Marcus Molinaro, a Republican from *Catskill who is also endorsed by the Conservative Party, is seeking reelection. He is challenged by Joshua Riley, an Ithaca Democrat who also carries the Working Families Party endorsement. Molinaro narrowly defeated Riley, 50.8% to 49.2%, in 2022.
In The Daily Star’s coverage area, the 19th District includes Chenango, Delaware and Otsego Counties. We interviewed both men for this story.
Molinaro, who became mayor of the village of Tivoli at age 18 and served as Dutchess County executive before hie election to Congress, explained why he’s running.
“For me, having spent the last 30 years working in upstate New York, learning from the people I serve, I believe we need someone who understands the district well and had lived the life of Upstate New York and is fighting on behalf of the people who live here,” he said.
Molinaro touted his rating by the Lugar Center as the second-most bipartisan member of Congress and said he was rated the fourth-most effective member of Congress, with “more pieces of legislation adopted than nearly any other member of the House and Senate.”
“I will work with anybody if they’re honest and earnest about the problems that we’re trying to solve and put aside those other differences to get to work,” he said.
Riley said he’s running for Congress because, “Our politics and our economy are just not working for everyday folks across upstate New York.”
He said, “We have so much corruption in our politics, so much greed in our economy and, the way it works is, corporate PACs (political action committees) make huge profits and they give a bunch of money to the politicians and it’s this vicious cycle where … everyday people get screwed. I’m running for Congress to change that.”
Riley said he has refused to accept corporate PAC money. “My vote’s not for sale,” he said.
He said he supports term limits because, “We need fewer career politicians and more new ideas,” and said, “I’m running to make sure the voice of everyday folks across Upstate New York is heard in our political system, for once.”
Riley said supporting labor unions is a priority for him, and that he will sponsor a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, which, he said, “was the disastrous Supreme Court ruling that opened the floodgates of dark money and corruption in our politics.”
He also said he would oppose federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that threaten the ability of volunteer fire departments to function.
Molinaro said his focus is on “driving down costs, because we pay too much for too little.” He also cited public safety as a concern, criticizing New York’s bail reform laws and federal border policy.
When asked how he would drive down costs, Molinaro said spending by the federal government has driven those costs up. “We shouldered the highest inflation in 40 years because of federal funding that fueled that,” he said.
He spoke of working with local governments to increase housing stock and drive down the cost of housing, and “make our communities more open to economic development,” and said Congress should work to drive down the cost of energy.
When asked if corporate greed plays a part in high prices, Molinaro said, “Yeah, corporations are greedy. This isn’t something new. They want to make money.” He said he has worked to hold corporations accountable, “whether it’s pollution in the Hudson River, and I fought for total cleanup and held polluters responsible,” and fought for policies that protect American jobs, by working with labor unions.
Riley also talked about corporations and costs, using a local utility as an example.
“When folks get their utility bill from NYSEG and they see that there was a 60% rate increase, they know that is because NYSEG is making record profits, and it’s skimming a bunch of that money off in corporate PAC checks and bribing the politicians so they can keep jacking up the rates.”
“This is just what happens across our politics and our economy,” he said. “A lot of folks are working so hard and still struggling to get by.”
“We’ve got to get politics back to being about people instead of being about the special interests and the corporate PACs,” he said.
Riley said what he has heard most from residents of Chenango, Delaware and Otsego counties is, “We have a huge problem with access to health care services in our rural communities.” He said he has a plan to make “significant investments in things like federally-qualified health centers, recruiting and retaining service providers that come to our rural communities, treating broadband as a public health priority.”
Riley said the COVID-19 pandemic showed how chronic health conditions can be treated through tele-health systems. “That’s something I’m really focused on,” he said.
Molinaro and Riley both repeated the attacks in their familiar television ads and mailers, with Molinaro criticizing Riley’s career as a lawyer working in Washington, D.C., while Riley cited Molinaro’s record as a 30-year politician.
“Frankly, we don’t need another Washington, D.C. lawyer who, frankly, has spent the last 20 years of his life fighting for mass amnesty and open borders,” Molinaro said.
Riley said of Molinaro, “He is a 30-year career politician who’s desperate to blame everybody else and take no responsibility, himself.”
Molinaro spoke of his service on the House Agriculture Committee. He acknowledged agriculture as the largest industry in the district and said the committee’s work is about more than just farming. “It’s about rural America,” he said. He said he has worked to support rural health care and rural infrastructure investment. He specifically cited high-speed internet and cell service — familiar issues in the region — along with water and sewer investment as tools to preserve rural communities.
Riley also talked about agriculture, but painted a different picture. “We need a new Farm Bill,” he said. “My opponent has been on the Agriculture Committee for the last two years and has failed to deliver an updated Farm Bill. That’s something that we really need to get done.”
He said, “These big agricultural monopolies like Koch Industries and all these other conglomerates are spending tons of money bribing politicians on the Agriculture Committee to make sure they can continue to hold onto their power and profits. That’s got to stop so that we can give our small farmers a fighting shot and to lower grocery costs and give consumers better access.”
Both men offered opinions on a bipartisan border bill, which died in Congress after Donald Trump’s intervention with GOP lawmakers to stop it. Molinaro said it would not have helped.
“That bill not only codified the problem, but continued to spend billions of dollars on housing, transportation, health care for illegal immigrants,” he said. “We cannot have a process that incentivizes the problem if you’re trying to solve the problem.”
The solution, he said, is investing in physical barriers, technology and border control. He called for expanding the asylum process to adjudicate asylum claims and negotiating with Mexico to keep immigrants in that nation while they wait for processing. He criticized states and cities that offer sanctuary to immigrants.
Riley, too, talked about the border bill and criticized Molinaro’s stance.
“He had an opportunity to support a bipartisan bill that was supported by the border patrol union and would have solved this problem,” he said. “He rejected that bill because he’s not interested in a solution. He is interested in having a problem to campaign on.”
Riley said Molinaro is running attack ads instead of touting his own achievements because, “He doesn’t have any accomplishments to run on. He’s running a campaign on an issue that he refuses to address.”
He said politicians from both parties “have completely failed on fixing our broken immigration system”
He said his own plan is to send thousands of additional agents to the southern border, deploy “the most advanced technology to stop the fentanyl trafficking” and “finally bring Democrats and Republicans together to get it done.”
Riley said immigration is tied to agriculture because farmers have trouble getting the labor they need.
He said he’s like to see changes to the proposed border bill, but said it’s a “huge improvement over the status quo.”
On the hot-button issue of abortion rights, Molinaro said, “I believe, when it comes to reproductive health decisions, that that decision ought to be left to a woman and her physician, not Washington, D.C.” He said he opposes any national ban on abortion and said he supports “broad access to birth control.”
Riley said he had heard from many voters who said they have traditionally voted straight Republican tickets, but told him they will vote for him because of their concerns about abortion access for women in their lives. “They care very much about making sure that they have the rights that women have had for the last 50 years to make health care decisions, before Roe v. Wade was overturned,” he said.
He refuted Molinaro’s stance in his ads, saying, “People understand my opponent’s voting record on this. He voted 13 times to restrict access to abortion services.” He also claimed, “Behind closed doors, in the fall of 2022 he expressed support for an abortion ban, and I don’t think any of that should be surprising to anybody. He’s been a politician for three decades and he’s been anti-choice for every single minute of that time in office.”
Riley said, if elected, he will sponsor the Women’s Health Protection Act to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade.
Molinaro concluded, saying, “I’ve spent a lot of time on the ground, listening to the people I serve. Without question, we don’t always agree. But I try desperately to ensure everyone, irrespective of their background, knows they’ve got someone willing to fight for them and work for them.”
Riley said, “There’s a deep sense of frustration among folks that the political establishment and the special interests have overlooked and looked down on communities like mine for a long time.”
“I’m a Democrat. I come from a Republican family and my general view is that all of the politicians are screwing up and we need some change,” he said.
*Edited on Oct. 21, 2024 to correct error.