WASHINGTON – Otsego County’s congressman, Antonio Delgado, R-19, said he was “humbled and honored” on being sworn in for a second term last evening at the Capitol.
The swearing in took place on the House floor, by groups, to observe social distancing protocols.
Congressman Antonio Delgado, R-19, today voted with a bipartisan coalition to add flexibility to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and make this tool more accessible to upstate businesses in need of assistance, his office announced.
Established in the bipartisan CARES Act, PPP provides small businesses and other entities loans of up to $10 million. These cover payroll and other operating expenses, and PPP is designed so loans are forgiven if the business retains its employees and their salary levels.
WASHINGTON – The Heroes Act, unveiled this week in the U.S. House of Representatives, is expected to be voted on Friday and includes a number of provisions to from Congressman Antonio Delgado’s Direct Support for Communities Act.
The Otsego County congressman office’s said the bill provides local governments with direct federal relief that can be used to pay for essential services and offset lost revenues and increased costs from the COVID-19 emergency.
Otsego County, with its dependence on sales- and bed-tax revenues associated with tourism, is expected to be hit particularly hard by the coronavirus fallout.
Today, Congressman Antonio Delgado, D-19, signed a bipartisan statement opposing Governor Cuomo’s order allowing National Guard to remove ventilators from Upstate hospitals for transport to the New York metropolitan area.
“We stand ready to help our fellow New Yorkers,” said the signators, who included Delgado, “but moving needed ventilators from our region now would be devastating and counter intuitive to all data on the spread of COVID-19.”
ONEONTA – Tony German, the retired general of the state’s National Guard, announced today he has dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination to run against Democratic Congressman Antonio Delgado in the 19th District.
“I couldn’t raise the required money,” he confirmed a few minutes ago. An Oneonta resident, he was the only candidate to emerge so far from Otsego County.
In a statement, he threw his support behind Ola Hawatmeh, , 42, a fashion designer and two-time breast cancer survivor who moved back to her hometown of Poughkeepsie from St. Louis in July to run against Delgado. She’s a 1999 graduate of Marist College.
With the 19th Congressional District election still 14 months away, U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado declined to engage with Adjutant Gen. (ret.) Tony German, the Oneonta Republican who filed papers yesterday to challenge the freshman incumbent next year.
His press office issued this statement: “Congressman Delgado is focused on making life better for the people in our region, and working to find bipartisan solutions to lower health care costs, expand rural broadband and support family farmers and veterans. That’s why he has held 21 town halls across the district, and will continue to serve with accessibility, accountability and transparency.”
Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
Congressman Antonio Delgado, D-19th, introduced legislation Monday that would allow all Americans to buy into a version of Medicare – an approach designed to avoid the substantial system-wide overhaul that would come with any effort to create a government-run health care system.
“There’s a need here to figure out where we all can come together and rally around achieving – achieving – a real change to our health care system,” Otsego County’s congressman said in an interview with CNN.
The move is being described as an incremental move toward expanded health insurance, one that is creating a fissure between moderates like Delgado and progressives like AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who support abolition of private health insurance.
COOPERSTOWN – Erin Collier, a Cooperstown Central graduate, nationally ranked tri-athlete, and daughter of a local beef farmer, announced today she is running for Congress in New York’s 19th District, where she will be the only woman against six Democrats.
“I’m not going to let those boys beat me,” she declares in a video posted on http://people.com/politics/erin-collier-running-new-york-district-19/
COOPERSTOWN – Diane Neal, former “Law & Order SVU” actress and an independent candidate for the 19th Congressional seat, has cancelled this afternoon’s planned 3 p.m. appearance at Cooperstown Village Hall, according to organizer Richard Sternberg, due to an illness in her family.
Sternberg said he will conducted a round table discussion about the five candidates who have appeared so far.
Brian Flynn, Democratic candidate for the 19th Congressional, is being hosted locally at two “meet and greets” next week, one in Cooperstown and one in Oneonta.
Leslie Berliant, the recent candidate for county board is hosting Flynn 5-6:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 4, at The Shack in Hartwick Seminary.
As he signaled Wednesday afternoon that he would do, U.S. Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, today joined 12 Republicans and 192 Democrats – 205 in all – in voting against his party’s $1.5 trillion tax-cut bill.
Enough members of the Republican majority – 227 – voted aye to pass the bill. The U.S. Senate is preparing its own version of tax reform, and the versions will have to be reconciled before becoming law.
LOUDONVILLE – John Faso and Zephyr Teachout are neck and neck.
The respected Siena Poll released numbers yesterday showing the Congressional race in the 19th District, which includes Otsego County, is too close to call.
Republican Faso has support of 43 percent of voters; Democrat Teachout, 42 percent, the poll of “likely voters” found.
By CATHY B. KOPLEN • for AllOTSEGO.com
ONEONTA – A vision for the future of the Southern Tier – including healthy, productive farms; maximizing natural resources; and a saturation of high-speed, broad-band Internet access – was touted by five candidates vying for the 19th district U.S. Congressional seat Tuesday.
The candidates, Republicans John Faso, Andrew Heaney and Bob Bishop, and Democrats Zephyr Teachout and Will Yandik, were invited to speak with local residents at Oneonta High School. The forum, which began at 7:30 p.m., was moderated by Steve Ammerman, state Farm Bureau manager of public affairs & associate director.