The congresswoman from the 18th District is Nita Lowey, a Democrat first elected in 1988. She is a formidable insider within the House Democratic caucus—a close and persuasive ally of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi with a senior position on the Appropriations Committee. Read More

The congresswoman from the 18th District is Nita Lowey, a Democrat first elected in 1988. She is a formidable insider within the House Democratic caucus—a close and persuasive ally of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi with a senior position on the Appropriations Committee.

Lowey was born in the Bronx, and after graduating from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in marketing, she moved to Queens, where she became a homemaker raising three children. She first got involved in politics when her neighbor, Mario Cuomo, got Lowey to help out in his campaign for lieutenant governor. He lost that race but was appointed New York secretary of state and hired Lowey as his assistant in 1975. Cuomo later became New York governor. In the 1988 Democratic primary for the House seat, Lowey faced Hamilton Fish III, who was politically well connected but as a former publisher of The Nation was considerably to the left of Lowey. She won 44%-36%. In the general election, she challenged two-term Republican Rep. Joseph DioGuardi, who was dogged by charges of illicit contributions. She won 50%-47%. Each spent more than $1 million, with Lowey spending $657,000 of her own money.

In the House, Lowey’s voting record is liberal, though she is more moderate on foreign policy. She has been a strong advocate of aid to Israel and voted for the 2002 Iraq war resolution. As the ranking Democrat on Appropriations’ State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, she opposed President George W. Bush’s call to increase troop strength in Iraq, but she backed his request for more money for military operations in Afghanistan. However, she became disgusted with corruption in that country and sought in 2010 to dramatically cut aid there. In March 2011, she led the opposition to an unsuccessful GOP proposal to slash U.S. contributions to international financial organizations. She argued that it would impair companies’ ability to access foreign markets. After a young Nigerian evaded airport security in Amsterdam and almost blew up a Northwest Airlines flight over American skies, Lowey demanded that airlines submit passenger manifests to the federal government at least 24 hours before a flight’s departure to give them more time to catch suspects.

On domestic issues, she has actively supported the National Endowment for the Arts, and also has been a big supporter of biomedical research and helped increase spending on cancer research at the National Institutes of Health. She has become a vigorous crusader against skin cancer after watching two close friends undergo surgeries and chemotherapy for melanoma, calling for better guidelines on sunscreen. Pursuing her interest in feminist issues, she has backed funds for international family planning. And she reportedly played an important behind-the-scenes role in getting the 2010 financial industry overhaul bill to soften proposed regulations on derivatives that would have negatively impacted New York’s banking industry.

Since Lowey first won, the boundaries of her district have been radically altered twice by redistricting, but she has been re-elected by wide margins. She thought about a Senate bid in 2000, but deferred to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and in 2008, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Clinton’s presidential campaign. Her party loyalty and avid fundraising led Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to appoint her to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2002 election. That year, the GOP’s six-seat gain was an acute disappointment to Lowey, who quietly bowed out of the chairmanship. In 2008, she was mentioned as a possible successor to Clinton in the Senate after Clinton became secretary of state, but the plum appointment went to Democratic U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

Lowey’s Republican opponent in 2008 and 2010 was Jim Russell, a staunch Christian conservative who proved no match for her. The local GOP in 2010 rescinded its endorsement of Russell after it was exposed that he wrote an anti-integration essay featured on former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke’s web site, and she won 62%-38%.