Rep. Vito Fossella (R) Elected Nov. 1997, 4th full term
Born:	Mar. 9, 1965, Staten Island
Home:	Staten Island
Education:	U. of PA., B.S. 1993, Fordham U., J.D. 1994
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Mary Pat)
Elected  Office:	NY City Cncl., 1994-97.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1994.
DC Office	1239 LHOB20515, 202-225-3371; Fax: 202-226-1272; Web site: www.house.gov/fossella
State Offices	Brooklyn, 718-630-5277; Staten Island, 718-356-8400.
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Staten Island is part of New York City, yet a land apart, closer geographically to New Jersey than to Brooklyn. Its inclusion in Greater New York as part of the great 1898 consolidation was something of an afterthought, and for two-thirds of a century it was connected to the rest of the City only by ferry or through Bayonne, New Jersey, until the Verrazano Narrows Bridge--one of Robert Moses's last and most impressive infrastructure achievements--opened to traffic in 1965. Hilly Staten Island (or Richmond County) is the state's southernmost county, one-tenth as densely populated as Manhattan--and that's after it grew 22% between 1990 and 2004, the fastest growth rate of any county in New York state. Ethnically, Staten Island is the most heavily Italian part of the United States; the 13th District has the highest percentage of residents of Italian ancestry in the nation; the signs on coffee shops here read Caffe and on delicatessens Salumeria. The Staten Island Ferry docks at St. George, the government hub and home of the Staten Island Yankees' new ballpark. The north and south shores that spread out from there are notable for their pleasant Victorian homes, while the island's west shore is industrial marshland, with new development on the now-closed Fresh Kills dump. Staten Island's interior consists of blocks of suburbia alternating with scrubland that's rapidly being turned into suburbia; this growth, plus a relative shortage of mass transit, has brought significant traffic congestion to this spacious island. Developers want to build a NASCAR racetrack on the island.

Culturally, Staten Islanders are deeply conservative--more so than in most of New York's suburbs, and quite a contrast from Manhattanites who live a 20-minute ferry ride away. Taking a cue from Fresh Kills, their motto is apt: "Don't dump on us." Not many people here read the New York Times; the local paper is the Staten Island Advance (emphasis on the first syllable, please), the foundation of the Newhouse publishing empire. Fed up with New York City's high income taxes and social programs, Staten Island residents voted in November 1993 for secession, but the legislature never acted. That same year, Staten Islanders provided the margin of victory for Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whose agenda of cutting crime and welfare rolls soothed the secessionist fervor. The Giuliani years produced an economic boom, with a new ferry terminal, additional shops and hundreds of new homes near cleaned-up beaches. The biggest victory was the closing of Fresh Kills in March 2001, though it was opened again temporarily to help in the cleanup of the World Trade Center site. The September 11 terrorist attacks killed nearly 250 Staten Islanders--nearly 10% of the dead, including nearly one-quarter of all the fire fighters who died.

The 13th Congressional District of New York is made up of Staten Island plus a few adjacent neighborhoods with similar demographics over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in Brooklyn. These include heavily Catholic and Italian Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst--middle-class enclaves with large single-family houses and small apartment buildings. The entertainment industry has found in these two neighborhoods some of its most memorable characters: The Three Stooges (Moe, Curly and Shemp) actually grew up in Bensonhurst; it was also home to the fictional Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners. And it was on the streets of Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge that John Travolta danced to fame in Saturday Night Fever. The district also includes Fort Hamilton, the only active-duty military base in New York City and one of the oldest military posts still in operation in the United States. The 13th is seeing a rising number of immigrants--a few white ethnic neighborhoods near St. George have experienced an influx of newcomers from West Africa, Mexico, South America, Southeast Asia, and Russia--but Staten Island remains New York's whitest borough; the 13th is only 6% black and 11% Hispanic. Voters here solidly backed Republicans George Pataki for governor and Rick Lazio for senator, and Staten Island provided Republican mayoral candidate Michael Bloomberg with his winning margin in 2001. The 13th District voted 52%-44% for Al Gore in 2000. But--September 11 may have been the reason--it snapped back and voted 55%-45% for George W. Bush in 2004, one of the biggest increases in Bush percentage in the country.

The congressman from the 13th District is Vito Fossella, a Republican who won a November 1997 special election. Fossella comes from a political, and Democratic, Staten Island family: his great-grandfather, James O'Leary, was a New Deal congressman from 1935-44, elected from Staten Island and the Wall Street tip of Manhattan; his father, Vito Fossella Sr., chaired the city's Board of Standards under Mayor Edward Koch; his uncle, Frank Fossella, was elected to the city council in 1981 and was beaten in 1985 by Republican Susan Molinari, Vito Fossella Jr.'s predecessor in Congress. Despite the party difference, the families became close. Vito Fossella graduated from Penn and Fordham law school and became a Republican in 1990, at 25, because of his conservative philosophy; he switched from pro-choice to pro-life in 1995, after the birth of his son. He worked on the campaigns of Susan Molinari, who succeeded her father, Guy Molinari, in the House. In 1994, Fossella, less than a year after finishing law school, was elected to the city council to fill a vacancy, with the help of the Molinaris.

Fossella was elected to Congress after Susan Molinari's surprise resignation, in what turned out to be a high visibility contest. Democrats picked Eric Vitaliano, a 15-year assemblyman from the conservative mid-Island district, an abortion opponent and sponsor of New York's death penalty. Vitaliano criticized Fossella as inexperienced and constantly tried to link Fossella with House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Fossella hit Vitaliano for supporting needle exchanges and for not taking Americans for Tax Reform's anti-tax-raise pledge. Two other factors helped Fossella. One was $750,000 in independent expenditures by the national Republican Party, attacking Vitaliano for supporting tax increases, and a group called Victory 97, which paid for posters depicting Vitaliano's allegedly silly spending programs: snow-making equipment in Ulster County, a state Museum of Cheese. The other was the re-election campaign of Giuliani, in a district where few local Democratic officeholders would admit they supported their liberal nominee Ruth Messinger. On Election Day, Giuliani carried the district 3-1 and Fossella won 61%-39%.

In the House, Fossella has one of the most conservative voting records in the New York delegation. He serves on the Energy and Commerce, and Financial Services committees, both locally useful slots. He worked on interstate waste issues, pushed for rerouting Newark Airport flights away from Staten Island, and got $20 million to dredge the Arthur Kill as part of a revitalization project. He sponsored the law that designates September 11 as Patriot Day, a day of reflection, and he helped to organize the ceremonial session of Congress in Lower Manhattan to observe the first anniversary of the attacks. On the highway bill, he said that he would block funding for the Second Avenue subway line unless Democrats in Albany approved spending for reconstruction of the Staten Island ferry terminal.

Fossella did not face a serious challenge until 2004, when 76-year-old former Assemblyman Frank Barbaro ran an aggressive campaign with help from allies in organized labor. With substantial funding, Barbaro attacked Fossella as anti-union and too conservative even for this district. Fossella defended his record of helping to rebuild lower Manhattan after the September 11 attacks and his support for tax cuts. He won 59%-41%, with 63% in Staten Island; Barbaro got 53% of the vote in Brooklyn, his home, which cast only 24% of the total. In local politics, Fossella has criticized Mayor Michael Bloomberg for not aiding the Republican party and, after the November 2004 elections, urged Colin Powell to come back to New York and run against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2006.

Committees

• Energy & Commerce (15th of 31 R): Energy & Air Quality; Environment & Hazardous Materials; Telecommunications & the Internet.
• Financial Services (20th of 37 R): Capital Markets, Insurance & Government Sponsored Enterprises; Financial Institutions & Consumer Credit.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	20	6	14	27	90	61	90	78	84	81	--
2003	15	--	0	10	--	66	96	86	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	30%	--	69%		45%	--	55%
Social	42%	--	58%		43%	--	57%
Foreign	35%	--	65%		8%	--	92%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Drilling in ANWR Y 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. N 5. DC School Vouchers * 6. Ban Human Cloning Y		7. Restrict Gun Liability Y  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage Y 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds N 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Vito Fossella (R-C)	112,934	59%	$1,134,213
	Frank Barbaro (D-Ind-WF)	78,500	41%	$423,793
2004 primary	Vito Fossella (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Vito Fossella (R-C-RTL)	72,204	70%	$893,650
	Arne Mattsson (D-L-WF)	29,366	28%	$6,757
	Other	2,123	2%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (65%); 1998 (65%); 1997 (61%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 118,370 (55%) Kerry (D) 96,474 (45%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 101,079 (52%) Bush (R) 85,119 (44%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Thirteenth District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D + 1
• District Size: 113 square miles
• Population in 2000: 654,361; 100.0% urban; 0.0% rural
• Median Household Income: $50,092; 11.9% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 18.3% blue collar; 65.0% white collar; 16.7% gray collar; 9.0% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 70.9% White, 6.3% Black, 9.1% Asian, 0.1% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 2.3% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 11.0% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 29.5% Italian, 11.5% Irish, 4.3% German
• Click here for statewide demographic data.