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Gillibrand Is a Centrist With a Tenacious Style
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| Parent(s) |
Candidate
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jan 23, 2009 08:35pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Saturday, January 24, 2009 02:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | NY Times.
"Kirsten E. Gillibrand, the two-term Democratic congresswoman chosen to fill the Senate seat vacated this week by Hillary Rodham Clinton, has married a relentless political and fund-raising style to a centrist brand of politics.
Ms. Gillibrand (pronounced JILL-uh-brand), a 42-year-old lawyer and mother of two young children, had never held political office before defeating a four-term incumbent in a vastly Republican district in 2006. Her district extends from the flatlands of the Hudson Valley to the mountainous North Country.
She comes from a politically connected family; her father is a prominent state lobbyist who once had close ties to former Gov. Pataki, a Republican, and her grandmother was prominent in the formidable Albany Democratic machine. Ms. Gillibrand worked as an intern for a Republican senator, Alfonse M. D’Amato, and clerked for a federal judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan.
Her politics, perhaps reflecting her conservative district, cannot be easily charted along a left-right axis. She earned a high rating from the National Rifle Association and opposed efforts to extend state drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants. At the same time, she favors abortion rights, voted to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and to extend middle-class tax cuts, and she has opposed privatizing Social Security. She raises large sums of money from Wall Street, but voted against the first bailout bill last fall; that vote angered some Democratic leaders in Congress.
Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, a gay rights group, said that he spoke by phone with Representative Gillibrand on Thursday night and that she spoke in favor of same-sex marriage. This would make her the first United States senator from New York to endorse gay marriage; Charles E. Schumer, the state’s senior senator, opposes it.
“She spoke eloquently about the 1,324 rights that are denied to same-sex couples in New York,”. |
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