Voters in Queens and Brooklyn will go to the polls on Tuesday, June 26, to choose nominees for Congressional seats up for grabs in the November election.
In the weeks leading up to the contests, the Times Newsweekly/Ridgewood Times will feature in this column press releases and statements sent by the campaigns of the candidates on the ballot.
The statements in this column do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Times Newsweekly/Ridgewood Times or its staff. Mud-slinging statements which include personal attacks on candidates are omitted.
Unions Supporting Velázquez for NY-7
Two of the city’s largest unions- SEIU Local 1199 and Local 32BJ, which represent almost 350,000 workers-have announced their endorsement of Rep. Nydia Velázquez campaign for an 11th term in Congress in the new Seventh Congressional District.
“Nydia is a tireless fighter for proworking gressive values and a strong friend of working men and women in New York and across the nation,” said George Gresham, president of SEIU 1199 United Healthcare Workers East. “She has a record of accomplishment protecting access to healthcare, jobs, women’s rights, and affordable housing.”
SEIU 1199 is the largest and fastest growing healthcare union in the country, with 275,000 members in New York State. Its mission is to achieve affordable, high quality healthcare for all.
Hector Figueroa, secretary-treasurer of 32BJ SEIU, the largest property services union in the nation and largest private-sector union in New York State, added, “Nydia Velázquez has been a strong voice in Congress for working people in New York and across the country. We are proud to support her reelection so that she can continue fighting for immigrants’ rights and for an economy that works for all working people.”
“I have always shared labor’s ideals of representing and fighting for the health, safety and welfare of people,” Velázquez said. It is gratifying to be recognized and supported by these leading progressive locals who have long been in the forefront of every battle for workers, the disenfranchised, women’s rights and immigrants.”
As noted, 32BJ is the largest property service workers union in the country, with more than 70,000 members in New York. Members are security officers, doormen, porters, and maintenance workers, bus drivers and aides, window cleaners and food service workers in residential buildings, commercial offices, airports, university and college campuses, public schools, theaters, museums arenas and stadiums.
Velázquez sits on the Congressional Financial Services Committee and Small Business Committee; she is a ranking member on Small Business. On Financial Services, she sits on the subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and on the subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity.
Crowley To D.C.: Don’t Cut Off NYPD
The House rejected an amendment last that would have punished the NYPD and banned federal funds from reaching the NYPD if it partic- ipated in any form of profiling, announced City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley, a candidate for the new Sixth Congressional District seat.
The amendment was a response to charges that the NYPD spied on Muslims for its counterterrorism operations. The amendment was defeated 232-193.
Crowley said that if this measure had passed, it would have severely limited the NYPD’s ability to keep New Yorker’s safe.
“Withholding federal funding from our police department because our cops have done their jobs is wrong,” Crowley said. “The NYPD has acted lawfully to protect New Yorkers from very real terrorist threats. Voting for this measure frustrates the NYPD’s efforts to keep us safe. We need to work on expanding funding for the NYPD in a dangerous world, not cutting it off.”
Lancman Outlines Agenda For Veterans
Assemblyman Rory Lancman, a candidate for New York’s Sixth Congressional District and a former platoon leader in New York’s own 42nd Infantry Division, stood with veterans leaders at O’Conner Park in Bayside to announce his pro-veterans agenda for Washington.
Lancman called on the VA to reduce wait times for mental illness claims and encourage vets suffering from PTSD to seek help, criticized efforts to convert retirement benefits from defined-benefit plans to 401(k)- style plans and make veterans pay more for their healthcare, and called for passage of the Service Members Rights Enforcement Improvement Act to tackle the high unemployment rate among veterans.
Lancman also called for more funding for the Veterans Administration (VA) to hire mental-health workers to decrease wait times for veterans with mental illness claims, and proposed closing a loophole that allowed the VA to skirt regulations regarding timely mental health treatment. He also proposed funding for education programs for veterans to seek help for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
According to the Washington Times, over 60 percent of troops who believe they have PTSD are not seeking treatment through the military.
“The scars that our veterans bring home are physical, mental and emotional, and we have a solemn obligation to make sure that we get them the help they need as quickly as possible,” Lancman said. “They do an outstanding job protecting us from harm-our government has to do a better job protecting them when they return home.”
Lancman also called on Congress to reject plans that would threaten benefits for veterans, including a Department of Defense proposal that would change the military’s definedbenefit plan to a 401(k)-style plan for new recruits, and an Obama administration proposal that would double pharmaceutical co-pays for veterans and require a yearly fee of $200 to use TRICARE for Life, a program that pays for out-of-pocket expenses not covered by Medicare.
Despite passage of the Hiring Heroes Act of 2011, which gives tax credits to employers who hire veterans that have been out of work for more than six months, and passage of the GI Bill for the 21st Century in 2008, which guaranteed the government would subsidize 100 percent of the cost of most public higher education, the unemployment rate among veterans remains disproportionately high.
As of September 2011, 12.1 percent of veterans that have served in the last decade are unemployed, and an 29.1 percent of veterans aged 18-24 are unemployed.
As noted, only voters who are registered with a party may vote in that party’s primary election on June 26 (Democratic voters may only vote in the Democratic primary; Republican voters may only vote in the Republican primary, etc.).
For more information on voting or to obtain a voting registration application, contact the New York City Board of Elections at 1-212-VOTENYC or visit www.vote.nyc.ny.us.
Press representatives of candidates may send their information to this paper by fax to 1-718-456-0120 or e-mail to info@times newsweekly.com. All releases are subject to editing.
