The congresswoman from the 28th District is Louise Slaughter, a Democrat elected in 1986. The first woman to chair the powerful Rules Committee, she became its ranking minority member after the Republican takeover of the House, in the process losing much of the power she wielded in setting the ground rules for debate that can make or break a piece of legislation on the House floor. Read More

The congresswoman from the 28th District is Louise Slaughter, a Democrat elected in 1986. The first woman to chair the powerful Rules Committee, she became its ranking minority member after the Republican takeover of the House, in the process losing much of the power she wielded in setting the ground rules for debate that can make or break a piece of legislation on the House floor.

A coal miner’s daughter and a descendant of Daniel Boone, she grew up in Kentucky and still speaks with the accent and distinctive phraseology of the mountains. She wound up in New York in the 1950s when she moved there with her husband. Her involvement in community issues led to a career in government. Slaughter became a staffer for Mario Cuomo when he was lieutenant governor in the 1970s, and she won a seat on the Monroe County Legislature in 1976. She was elected to the New York Assembly in 1982. Four years later, she beat one-term conservative Republican Rep. Fred Eckert, 51%-49%, after charging that he did nothing to free Associated Press reporter Terry Anderson, a Rochester native held hostage in Lebanon. She secured what had been a marginal seat by tending carefully to local problems and by winning the support of area businessmen and the local Democrat & Chronicle newspaper.

Slaughter has a solidly liberal voting record. She backs feminist causes and is active on health issues. In 2008, she capped a years-long campaign by winning enactment of her bill to bar discrimination in employment or health insurance based on the use of genetic information. During the 2009 health care debate, she drew criticism among Republicans for shunning town-hall meetings while other lawmakers were going face-to-face with angry constituents. She was a major advocate of including a government-run insurer to compete with private companies, and was sharply critical of the Senate’s decision to jettison the public option. But when the final compromise came before the House in March 2010, she prepared a rule to consider the Senate version passed once the House approved a corrections bill making changes to the other body’s version. Outraged Republicans dubbed the move the “Slaughter Solution,” even as Slaughter noted that the GOP had employed the strategy from time to time in the majority. The idea eventually was scrapped.

As a microbiologist by training, and consistent with the Rochester-area research mindset, Slaughter opposed proposals to ban human cloning and was an outspoken proponent of federal support for embryonic stem cell research. She introduced a bill in 2009 to limit the non-therapeutic use of pharmaceuticals in livestock but not prevent their use when animals are sick. The bill did not move, but hearings on it drew widespread attention. The Food and Drug Administration released guidelines recommending the end of using of antibiotics to promote animal growth, a move Slaughter hailed as a step in the right direction. She reintroduced her bill in 2011. On local issues, Slaughter has been an outspoken advocate of bringing high-speed rail to her region.

As a loyal lieutenant of Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Slaughter became an outspoken critic of Republican policies during the 12 years of Republican control ending in early 2007. She accused Republicans of “strong-arm tactics” and a “win-at-all-costs mentality” to move legislation. In January 2007, she helped to bring the first legislation to the House floor for the new majority: an overhaul of House rules, largely dictated by Pelosi and her lieutenants. Slaughter hailed the result as “a Congress people can be proud of again.” But Republicans quickly cried foul when Democrats next moved to the floor six bills from their campaign agenda, without committee action and with no opportunity for amendments. Her dismissal of procedural objections led to regular flare-ups with ranking Republican David Dreier of California, an astute and partisan master of parliamentary procedure. But there also has been occasional Democratic criticism of the committee’s strong-arm tactics. Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., in September 2007 voiced “regret” that the Rules Committee had barred Republican amendments to a flood insurance bill. But she retained the confidence of Pelosi, who once called Slaughter “the best politician that I have ever seen.”

Slaughter’s ascension to the chairmanship of Rules capped several years of struggle to move up in the Democratic leadership. In 1994, she lost to Barbara Kennelly of Connecticut in the race for vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, and in 1996 she was defeated by John Spratt of South Carolina for the ranking Democrat post on the Budget Committee. She became the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee in 2005.

In 2002, redistricting was a perils-of-Pauline nightmare for Slaughter. Sluggish population growth meant that upstate New York had to lose one congressional district, and after much political maneuvering, Slaughter was placed in the same district with Democratic Rep. John LaFalce, the party’s ranking member on the Banking Committee. Luckily for Slaughter, LaFalce decided to retire. In the general election that year, she campaigned on much new territory, but most of it was Democratic. She won 62%-38% against an inexperienced Republican challenger. She has since won easily.