Chris Carney

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Chris Carney
Chris Carney
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Pennsylvania's 10th district
Incumbent
Assumed office 
January 4, 2007
Preceded by Don Sherwood
Born March 2, 1959 (1959-03-02) (age 49)
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Political party Democratic
Spouse Jennifer Carney
Religion Roman Catholic

Christopher P. "Chris" Carney (born March 2, 1959) is a professor and Congressman of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 10th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. He is the first Democrat to represent the district since January 1961. The district, located in Northeastern Pennsylvania, includes Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties outside of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre (communities such as Clarks Summit and the Back Mountain towns of Trucksville and Shavertown) as well as all or most of Bradford, Lycoming, Montour, Northumberland, Pike, Union, Snyder, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming Counties.

Carney is also an associate professor of political science at Penn State Worthington Scranton, where he has taught since 1992.

Carney got his bachelor's degree from Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, received his masters from the University of Wyoming, and completed his Ph.D in political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their five children in Dimock Township in Susquehanna County.

Contents

[edit] Congressional career

Carney serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure and Homeland Security Committees.[1][2] In January 2007, Carney was named Chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight, a surprising achievement for a freshman Congressman.[3][4]Carney also serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure Highways and Transit Subcommittee and he was named Vice Chairman of theEconomic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee.[5]

[edit] Military service

A Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Reserve, Carney served multiple tours overseas and was activated for operations Enduring Freedom and Noble Eagle. He was direct commissioned as an Ensign in 1995. He served as Senior Terrorism and Intelligence Advisor at the Pentagon.

He is the recipient of the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, three joint Service Achievement Medals, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and the Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal. His awards also include the Naval Rifle Marksman ribbon and the Naval Pistol Expert Medal.

In September of 2007, Congressman Carney went on active duty with the Navy for his two weeks of service as a Lt. Commander in the reserves. On active duty, Carney will be working on the "Predator" project near Norfolk, VA.[6]

[edit] 2006 Congressional campaign

Main article: Pennsylvania 10th congressional district election, 2006

When Carney entered the race for the 10th, he was initially considered an underdog against Republican incumbent Don Sherwood. The 10th had been in Republican hands since 1961, and had been made even more Republican when the state legislature cut out heavily Democratic Scranton in an effort to protect Sherwood. The four-term incumbent had barely defeated Democrat Patrick Casey in his bid to succeed popular 36-year incumbent Joe McDade in 1998, and narrowly defeated Casey in a 2000 rematch. However, he hadn't faced major-party opposition since the 10th was redrawn.

However, revelations of Sherwood's five-year-long extramarital affair with a woman more than 30 years his junior, along with allegations of abuse, severely hampered Sherwood's reelection chances in the 10th, which has a strong social conservative tint. Carney also garnered the endorsement of 30 labor unions.[6] In the election, Carney defeated Sherwood, 53% to 47%.

Carney is a somewhat conservative Democrat, which is not surprising given the nature of the district. For example, while opposing proposals to privatize Social Security, he said he is open to the idea of adding private accounts in addition to (not at the expense of) traditional defined benefits.[7][8][9]. He supports federal investment in stem cell research[10], and is an advocate of universal healthcare[11]. He supports gun rights, does not favor abortion (but supports family planning and "comprehensive reproductive healthcare"), and opposes gay marriage[12]. He supports estate tax reduction.[13][14]

During the campaign, Carney raised money with a wide-variety of supporters including Sen. Barack Obama, Sen Joe Biden[15], Rep. Jay Inslee[16], Rep. Jack Murtha[17], and Richard Perle, a leading Bush Administration advocate of war with Iraq who more recently has criticized the decision to go to war[18] Douglas Feith, another Pentagon hawk, congratulated Carney on Election Night.[19]

Carney did make change of direction in Iraq policy a cornerstone of his campaign, often choosing to decry the Bush Administration's failure to properly support the military or to properly plan for the war.[20] However, he subsequently voted to continue the war in Iraq, H.R. 2206, and against H.R. 2956, an effort to establish a timeline to withdraw from Iraq.[21] Carney was one of only ten Democrats to vote against ending the war.[22] Carney also is not enthusiastic about investigations of pre-war intelligence. “The more energy spent on answering Congressional investigations, the less time will be spent on winning the war,” he said.[23] From 2002 to 2004, Carney served as a counterterrorism analyst for the Bush administration, under Douglas Feith in the Office of Special Plans, developing links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.[24]

On May 3, 2007, Carney voted with 166 Republicans against the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 , even though the Pennsylvania delegation (including 4 Republicans) voted 14-4 in favor.

In 2008 he was one of the "Blue Dog" Democrats who joined most Republicans in an unsuccessful to attempt to pass a bill amending FISA to grant telecommunications companies immunity from prosecution for their involvement in warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. In particular, he sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi encouraging her not to fight the bill. His role provoked anger amongst his own party, even to the extent of leading to ads against him sponsored by Democratic affiliated groups.[7]

[edit] 2008 Re-election Campaign

In his 2008 bid for re-election, Carney will likely face tough opposition on the Republican side from GOP nominee Chris Hackett.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is preparing TV spots and other advertisements to portray Carney as a close ally of Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Indeed, as a freshman Democrat, conventional wisdom would suggest Carney is in hot water given the strongly conservative leanings of his district, which voted overwhelmingly for President Bush over John Kerry in 2004. Indeed, many pundits feel that any passable Democrat would have defeated Sherwood in 2006.

Simultaneously, the Service Employees International Union and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee--which has specifically identified Carney as one of a host of vulnerable freshman Democratic Congressmen they intend to heavily fund and have so already--have already run ads in the district praising his service in the House, including one commercial highlighting his vote for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.25 by 2009, a measure passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bush on May 24, 2007. Carney also is coming under heavy criticism of his lobbying for amnesty for telecommunications companies--from whom he has accepted many donations--for cooperating with the Bush administration in allegedly illegally spying on Americans.

Since the summer of 2007, the non-partisan Cook Political Report and a number of other political analysts listed Carney's District as "slightly" leaning Democratic in 2008, and according to the FEC Carney has raised over $500,000 towards his re-election in the first 6 months of 2007. Public opinion polls conducted in January 2008 indicated a lead over Hackett (then a candidate in the GOP primary), by significant double-digit margins and even a majority of registered Republicans, 53 percent, approve of his job performance. Carney has made a significant effort to portray himself as a conservative Democrat and has asserted, time and time again, that Republican efforts to portray him as a 'tax-and-spend' liberal will fail since, as he claims, 10th district residents are familiar with his moderate policies. In January of 2008, Carney sent letters to voters in the district that ballyhoo his aggressive stance on illegal immigration, trumpeting his strong support for border security, in an effort to distinguish himself from the Democratic leadership of the House. In the April 22 Pennsylvania primaries, enormous Democratic voter turnout, most certainly due to the presidential race, led Carney to earn over 70,000 votes in the congressional primary, despite running unopposed--more than the totals of Republican candidates Dan Meuser and Chris Hackett in their primary combined.

Like all current Democratic members of Congress, Chris Carney is a superdelegate in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary. In late March, he was reported being somewhat skeptical of Hillary Clinton's electability, citing that her negatives are "widely known", and adding, regarding Barack Obama, that, "what we don't know is whether the other shoe is going to drop for Mr. Obama." He vowed that he would "wait and see how his district votes", hinting that he would likely issue an endorsement after the April 22 Pennsylvania primary for the candidate that wins by a "landslide"--if a huge victory by either occurs--in his overwhelmingly conservative district in which registered Democrats are few compared to Republicans. Fellow northeastern Pennsylvania Congressman Paul Kanjorski, had long endorsed and actively campaigned for Clinton, alongside a number of other Democratic politicians in the state, including Governor Ed Rendell, while U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Jr. was Obama's most significant supporter. Prior to 2008, in his 2006 race against Sherwood, Obama had helped Carney raise funds for his campaign. After remaining silent for two weeks following the primary, in which Clinton prevailed against Obama in the state by nine points while defeating him in the 10th district by forty points, the National Republican Congressional Committee accused Carney of "de facto endorsement of Obama" by pointing to his lack of any public endorsement despite Clinton's comfortable win. Soon thereafter, Carney endorsed Clinton on May 9 despite her slim chances of winning the Democratic nomination, after she carried his district in the Democratic primary by a whopping 70%-30% margin.

[edit] See also

United States Navy Portal

[edit] References

  1. ^ House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee: About the Committee
  2. ^ Committee on Homeland Security
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ Committee on Homeland Security
  5. ^ [2]
  6. ^ [3]
  7. ^ Project Vote Smart - Representative Christopher P. 'Chris' Carney - Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
  8. ^ http://www.politicspa.com/pressreleasedetailed.asp?id=7299
  9. ^ http://www.politicspa.com/pressreleasedetailed.asp?id=7299
  10. ^ The Times-Tribune - Sherwood protests stem-cell criticism 10/12/06
  11. ^ Project Vote Smart - Representative Christopher P. 'Chris' Carney - Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
  12. ^ On the Issues | Chris Carney for Congress
  13. ^ On the Issues | Chris Carney for Congress
  14. ^ Project Vote Smart - Representative Christopher P. 'Chris' Carney - Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
  15. ^ The Pennsylvania Progressive: Carney/Biden Event
  16. ^ [4]
  17. ^ The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, PA - Under fire: Murtha defends comments about war, troops
  18. ^ [5].
  19. ^ A New House Democrat With an Insiders’ View of Iraq - New York Times
  20. ^ Chris Carney for Congress
  21. ^ Chris Carney votes
  22. ^ House vote H.R. 2956
  23. ^ A New House Democrat With an Insiders’ View of Iraq - New York Times
  24. ^ https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20060403&s=ackerman040306

[edit] External links

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Preceded by
Don Sherwood		 Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Pennsylvania's 10th congressional district
2007–present		 Succeeded by
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