The congressman from the 21st District is Paul Tonko, a Democrat elected in 2008. The grandson of Polish immigrants, Tonko was born in the old mill town of Amsterdam, N.Y., where he still lives. His working-class background gave him an appreciation for the “underdog” that remains the underpinning of his political beliefs. Attracted from a young age to public service, he built his career in state government, first at the New York Department of Transportation and then as an engineer at the Department of Public Service, the state’s utilities regulator. In 1974, at age 26, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors. He became board chairman in 1981. Tonko won a seat in the New York Assembly in a 1983 special election, and served for nearly a quarter century. He won passage of a law requiring health insurers to cover most mental illnesses and another requiring social workers to report all cases of suspected child abuse to the state. But he exercised his greatest influence over state energy policy, serving as chairman of the Assembly’s energy committee from 1992 to 2007, when he resigned to accept an appointment as head of the state’s Energy Research and Development Authority. Read More

The congressman from the 21st District is Paul Tonko, a Democrat elected in 2008. The grandson of Polish immigrants, Tonko was born in the old mill town of Amsterdam, N.Y., where he still lives. His working-class background gave him an appreciation for the “underdog” that remains the underpinning of his political beliefs. Attracted from a young age to public service, he built his career in state government, first at the New York Department of Transportation and then as an engineer at the Department of Public Service, the state’s utilities regulator. In 1974, at age 26, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors. He became board chairman in 1981. Tonko won a seat in the New York Assembly in a 1983 special election, and served for nearly a quarter century. He won passage of a law requiring health insurers to cover most mental illnesses and another requiring social workers to report all cases of suspected child abuse to the state. But he exercised his greatest influence over state energy policy, serving as chairman of the Assembly’s energy committee from 1992 to 2007, when he resigned to accept an appointment as head of the state’s Energy Research and Development Authority.

Democratic Rep. Michael McNulty decided against seeking an 11th term, and Tonko got into the contest to succeed him in 2008. In the primary, he faced Phil Steck, an Albany County legislator, and Tracey Brooks, a former regional director for New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Both enjoyed a head start raising money. But most of the local Democratic establishment lined up behind Tonko (McNulty remained neutral). Tonko won important union endorsements, as well as the backing of the state’s Working Families Party. With few differences between the candidates on major issues, the local support likely made the difference. Outraised and outspent by both Brooks and Steck, Tonko sailed to victory over both.

In the general election Tonko faced Republican Jim Buhrmaster, a Schenectady County legislator who hoped that his appeal to independents might help him overcome the huge registration advantage for Democrats in the district. But Tonko won with 62% of the vote. Buhrmaster received 35%, and Steck, who ran as an independent, received 3%. Two years later, Tonko was re-elected easily over Republican Theodore Danz, 59%-41%.

Tonko is a loyal Democrat who has been particularly liberal on economic issues. He has focused on the issue he knows best, energy policy. He got a bill through the House in September 2009 calling for an $800 million research program in wind energy technologies, which would benefit GE in his district. Another of his bills, which passed two months later, created a research program to improve the efficiency of gas turbines used in power generation systems that convert heat into energy. In 2010, Tonko got a provision in a House-passed oil spill bill following the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to speed up the response to future spills and to involve small businesses in spill research. In 2011, he sponsored an amendment to a fiscal 2011 spending bill seeking to protect the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon emissions.

On other issues, Tonko worked with other lawmakers to expand low-income children’s access to healthy meals and to improve engineering education in schools. After the GOP takeover of the House in 2010, he got a seat on the Budget Committee. He was highly critical of expanding the Bush-era tax cuts for high-income earners in December 2010. “The trickle-down effect has not worked,” he said.