During JJ weekend- I was shocked at how little some of my fellow bloggers from outside Northern Virginia knew about Gerry and his campaign (which isn't their fault- it isn't covered much on the blogs). Yesterday, at two events (one in Fairfax and one in Prince William)- Gerry Connolly kicked off his campaign for Congress. Below the fold you will find Gerry's announcement speech including positions on the Economy, Health Care, the Environment, Education, and the Iraq War and Foreign Policy.Good afternoon and thank you all for being here at this beautiful Oakton library. We opened this library last Fall. It represents what can happen when we work together, collaboration among the community, the private sector and government. Getting things done. Results that matter. That's the ethos that imbues my approach as the chief elected official of Virginia's largest local government and that's the ethos I want to take to the United States Congress. Getting it done, reaching across the aisle, building coalitions, focusing on practical results for our citizens. That spirit has produced a county that has been named the best managed in America with a triple AAA bond rating and the lowest crime rate in the nation. As its Chairman I started a prevention program that cut gang involvement in half, an affordable housing initiative that has preserved thousands of housing units, a living wage policy for our employees. Working with the Sierra Club we launched a Cool Counties plan that will reduce greenhouse gases and address the global warming threat here and across the 3066 counties in the United States. We have produced the most progressive government in our county's history. Government that works, results that matter.
Sadly that spirit is not what characterizes our federal government, a government that is broken and dysfunctional here at home and abroad. These past seven years of the Bush administration have seen a wholesale retreat on the environment, respect for civil liberties, a woman's right to choose, health care and spiraling federal deficits. If one needed a compelling image of a dysfunctional national government you need look no further than Katrina. The tragic incompetence of Brownee and FEMA left New Orleans, one of America's oldest and proudest cities, devastated. Lives were lost, whole sections of the city destroyed. The utter indifference of the Bush administration in preparing to meet the worst natural disaster ever to hit the continental United States is a stark indictment of its incompetence and indifference in the face of unprecedented human suffering. And abroad America's image has been damaged. The opportunity to unite world opinion to America's cause immediately after the tragedies of 9/11 was squandered by cowboy diplomacy and a reckless war in Iraq.
We have work to do in the U.S. Congress.
The Economy:
The US economy is rapidly headed into recession, and President Bush has proposed a budget with $407 billion in red ink. We balance our budgets at the local level, and here in Northern Virginia we have produced a dynamic economy that has created hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs. I want to take that can-do attitude to the next Congress.
Health Care:
The next Congress must boldly confront rising health care costs and ensure quality, affordable health care for 47 million uninsured Americans. As the next Congressman from the 11th District of Virginia I will work with a broad based coalition to design a plan that emphasizes preventive care, expands the SCHIP program to kids and makes it illegal for insurance companies to cherry pick and deny treatment because of pre-existing conditions.
The Environment:
On the environment I will take to the federal level what we have begun here at the local level. We need an EPA that respects the science of global warming and that advocates for clean water and clean air. As a member of Congress I will work to restore America to the forefront of environmental leadership in the world.
Education:
In Northern Virginia we have worked hard to build the finest schools in the country, with record high test scores, record graduation rates, and among the highest rates of on- to- higher education in the U.S. Unfortunately the federal government has not been a helpful partner in these achievements. We are denied impact aid even when federal facilities add significantly to our school enrollment, and unfunded mandates add millions of dollars to our locally funded budgets. No Child Left Behind is a classic example of federal good intentions gone awry. It is rigidly applied, takes no account of large immigrant populations for whom English is a challenge and costs local taxpayers millions of their dollars to implement. As a Congressman I will bring the awareness of local impacts to federal legislation and will oppose federal unfunded mandates.
The Federal Workforce:
Here in the 11th District we house many federal agencies and tens of thousands of federal workers. They deserve a Congressman who will fight for them-challenging the needless outsourcing of their jobs, promoting telework, as I have done in the metropolitan region, fighting for pay parity and demanding respect for their public service. As the Congressman from the 11th Congressional District I will be their advocate.
Iraq and Foreign Policy:
I spent ten years of my career as a senior staff member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee traveling to 76 countries, and advising the Congress on the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and a score of foreign policy issues. I want to take that special expertise to the Congress to help restore America's image abroad, and to end a war in Iraq that has cost us in blood and treasure. As a member of Congress I will insist that torture has no place in American values, and will fight to restore our leadership and credibility in the international community.
You see we have a lot of work to do in the next Congress. I am the only candidate who brings both extensive local government management and foreign policy experience to this race. I bring a passion for progressive values, and an ethic of getting things done. I want to bring that same expectation-the expectation that government will work for its citizens-to the United States Congress. We voters in the 11th Congressional District have an opportunity to change the direction of our country, to restore our leadership in the world and to move beyond the harsh ideological rhetoric of the past. Today I am formally announcing my candidacy to be the next Congressman from the 11th Congressional District of Virginia . We have work to do, we have changes to make, let's get to it.
It is ironic that Gerry chose the Oakton library to make his announcement. That is the same library that is surrounded today by 19 acres of McMansions, former green space that a sizeable number of Oakton residents wanted preserved as a park instead of being clear-cut by Gerry's campaign-cash-donating developers.
A few random comments on his positions:
*The economy: the $407B in red ink in the Federal budget is one of the major reasons the local economy of Fairfax County is so strong. Gerry and his crew had nothing to do with it. It pre-dates his service on the BOS. However, is Gerry telling us now that he will reduce the Federal spending that is the economic engine of FFX?
*Health care: see the above. Is Gerry going to divert Federal dollars from FFX in areas such as government IT spending to provide health care for 47 million uninsured Americans, all while eliminating the $407B in deficit spending?
*Oppose unfunded Federal mandates: Cute. If you increase costs to insurance companies by forcing them to cover pre-existing conditions, for example, insurance rates for everyone will rise, including those of FFX County public employees. Isn't that an unfunded Federal mandate, Gerry? How about the Federal law that requires providing free public education to illegals? Sounds like an unfunded Federal mandate to me, Gerry. Are you going to reverse yourself on illegal immigrants?
Am I a Gerry Connolly-Hater? Not really. I just hate all duplicitous politicians who will say anything to get elected while always acting in their own self interest.
Now it's housing for people (demos) and a library, that's evil of course.
It was County regulations that required the clear cutting.
But I forgot it is a graven part of Democratic Party doctrine that all development is evil and we all should live in trees and caves, right?
County regulations required the clear cutting??? Show them to us. I see lots of developments building in between protected trees. My subdivision is an example where the builder's proffer included protected trees. And, BTW, the BOS has the authority to change "county regulations."
You make the McMansions sound like Habitat For Humanity. We're talking about $1.25M homes here, not cheap row houses.
Yes, County regulations result in clear-cutting because of requirements for extra wide utility easements cleared of trees, stormwater detention/retention ponds, again cleared of trees, maximum slope restictions for roads, sidwalks and privacy yards that require leveling areas. The Fairfax Tree Committee, chaired by Sharon Bulova, was an eye-opener on the degree to which all of these regulations combine to require more tree clearing than developers, or anyone else, want.
Developers lose money two ways in clearing trees. First, it costs money to hire the laborers, rent the bulldozers and chippers and to haul the junk trees away. Second, if a lot is wooded, customers will pay a premium for it. Developers don't clear, if they don't have to.
So only housing for poor people is worthy of being built? All housing should be seen as a good by members of the Democratic Party (the people's party) because it shelters people. You know, one of the three basics for human survival: food, clothing, SHELTER. Or have we as a party stopped caring about meeting the human need for housing.
What was really going on there was that the very well to do (mostly Republican) neighbors had enjoy the benefit of the scrub vegetation on someone else's private property and wanted to continue the windfall they had enjoyed, for free.
Options For Oakton, the grassroots effort to save the green space next to the planned Oakton library, proposed a Special Tax District to buy the land from the developer and maintain the park. We estimated that the typical homeowner in the STD would pay between $40 and $110 per year in additional property tax, a small price to pay for having a town park next to the library and for not increasing the traffic density in the center of Oakton at Chain Bridge Road and Hunter Mill Road.
Supervisor Connolly conducted an unscientific, straw ballot survey of the community reaction to the proposed STD and then refused to release the results, but claimed that the majority opposed the STD. He also refused to hold a public hearing on the matter.
Needless to say, the developer stood to gain far more profit by building the houses than by selling the land to the county. Connolly was rewarded with campaign donations.
I am not aware, BTW, of any Republican influence or dominance in OFO. Labeling them a group of "mostly Republican"s is a sleazy tactic worthy of Gerry Connolly and Linda Symth.
To whoever wrote this speech, I'm sorry to be critical. However, as a reader who truly is interested in hearing what Gerry believes to be the best case for his candidacy, I have to tell you that the cliches and the strange tone of this speech made it extremely difficult for me to focus on the substance.