Anthony Weiner

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Anthony Weiner
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 9th district
Incumbent
Assumed office  January 3, 1999
Preceded by	Charles Schumer
Born	September 4, 1964 (1964-09-04) (age 45) New York City
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Huma Abedin (engaged)
Residence	Forest Hills, Queens, New York City
Alma mater	State University of New York at Plattsburgh
Occupation	Congressman
Religion	Jewish

Anthony David Weiner (pronounced /ˈwiːnər/; born September 4, 1964) is a Democratic politician from New York. He represents New York's ninth Congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. It includes parts of south-central and eastern Brooklyn and south-central Queens. In Queens, the ninth district includes the neighborhoods of Forest Hills, Maspeth, Fresh Meadows, Glendale, Howard Beach, Kew Gardens, Kew Gardens Hills, Middle Village, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Rego Park, Rockaway Beach, Belle Harbor, and Woodhaven. Its Brooklyn component includes Flatlands, Gerritsen Beach, Marine Park, Midwood, Mill Basin, and Sheepshead Bay.

Early life

Weiner was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Morton "Mort" Weiner (a neighborhood lawyer) and Frances "Fran" Weiner (a math teacher at Midwood High School).^[1][2] He lived for a time in Rochdale Village, a large cooperative apartment complex that was dedicated by President Kennedy. He attended New York public schools, including Brooklyn Technical High School, and received a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

Weiner was roommates with the Comedy Central program The Daily Show host Jon Stewart after college, and the sole documented recipient of political campaign contributions from the comedian.^[3]

Weiner then worked on the staff of then-Congressman and current Senator Chuck Schumer from 1985 to 1991.

New York City Council

Weiner, winning a six-way primary and four-way general election, was elected to the New York City Council in 1991.^[2] At 27, he was the youngest person ever to serve on that body up to that point.

Over the next seven years in the City Council, Weiner initiated programs to tackle "quality of life" concerns. He started a program to put at-risk and troubled teens to work cleaning graffiti. He spearheaded development plans for historic Sheepshead Bay, that led to a revival of the area. And when supermarkets started leaving the neighborhood, Weiner worked to reverse the trend.

As the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Housing, he fought to increase federal funding for public housing, to ban dangerous dogs from projects, and to add more police officers to the beat. His investigation into the cause of sudden and fatal stairwell fires made him front page news; he exposed dangerous practices that eventually led the city to replace the paint in developments citywide.^[2]

U.S. House of Representatives

In 1998, midway through his ninth term, his former boss, Schumer, opted for an ultimately successful campaign for the United States Senate. Weiner ran for and won the Democratic nomination to succeed Schumer, which was tantamount to election in the heavily Democratic 9th. He has been reelected four times, with almost no opposition. He is only the fifth person to represent the 9th since its creation in 1920 (it was numbered as the 10th from 1920 to 1945, the 15th from 1945 to 1953, the 11th from 1953 to 1963, the 10th again from 1963 to 1973, the 16th from 1973 to 1983, the 10th again from 1983 to 1993, and the 9th since 1993).^[4]

In late July 2009, Weiner succeeded in securing a full House floor vote for single payer health care when Congress returns from its August recess, in exchange for not amending AAHCA in committee markup with a single-payer plan.^[5]

Weiner is known to be one of the most "intense and demanding" members of Congress, often times working long hours with his staff fact-checking documents. As a result, he has one of the highest staff turnover rates of any member of Congress.^[6]

Committee assignments

Committee on Energy and Commerce

• Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection
• Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet (Vice Chair)
• Subcommittee on Health

Committee on the Judiciary

• Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
• Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law

2005 Mayoral campaign

Weiner failed in his attempt to win the Democratic nomination for the New York City mayoral election, 2005 against three other Democrats.

Weiner started out last in many polls, but gained ground in the final weeks of the campaign. His publicly announced campaign strategy was to come in second in the Democratic primary election with enough votes to force a runoff election, win that runoff, then campaign against the then-Republican candidate, incumbent Michael Bloomberg. When the initial returns came in, Fernando Ferrer had 39.95%, just shy of the 40% required to avoid a runoff, and Weiner had 28.82%. In a legally non-binding statement, Weiner then withdrew from the race and endorsed Ferrer, citing the need for party unity. Eventually, the runoff was declared unnecessary as absentee ballots put Ferrer over the 40% mark. (2005 primary election returns.) Weiner denied rumors that various high-ranking New York Democrats, such as Schumer and then-New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, had urged him to concede.

2009 Mayoral campaign

Before the New York City Council voted to extend term limits for Mayor Bloomberg and the city council, Weiner appeared to be a candidate for mayor.^[7] He later backed away from a potential race against Bloomberg, saying he would make a decision in the spring.^[8]

He formally announced his decision not to run on May 26, 2009 and endorsed Democratic candidate Bill Thompson.^[9]

FEC violations

The Federal Election Commission had two cases (MURs, or Matters Under Review) concerning Weiner. Both cases have the same name, Friends of Weiner. MUR 4995 resulted in a $47,000 fine ("civil penalty") against Weiner because of financial misconduct in one of his reelection campaigns.^[10] MUR 5429 involved a $28,000 loan that Weiner's parents made to one of his campaign committees. ^[11]

Political positions

Weiner received an "A" on the liberal Drum Major Institute's 2005 Congressional Scorecard on middle-class issues.^[12]

Weiner repeatedly called his opposition "the Republic Party" when speaking on the floor of the United States House of Representatives in February 2007. The term "Republic Party" is widely seen as a counter to the epithet "Democrat Party" (as opposed to "Democratic Party", the party's grammatically correct name) commonly used by Republican partisans, especially during the 2006 midterm election season.^{[citation needed]}

Abortion

Weiner in 2003 received a 100% rating from NARAL, and consequently a 0% rating from NRLC. He voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which would have made it a crime to perform partial birth abortions. ^[13] He was strongly critical of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which places limits on taxpayer-funded abortions in the context of the November 2009 Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Iraq

Weiner voted for the authorization to use force in Iraq in 2002, which he later said he regretted. In a conversation with talk show host Bill O'Reilly on The O'Reilly Factor, Weiner proposed a withdrawal from Iraq. When questioned by O'Reilly about how he proposed to stop Iran from having undue influence in Iraq after an American withdrawal, Weiner suggested that US forces should go to the Iraqi borders with Iran and Syria, so as to prevent foreign fighters from entering Iraq, while keeping out of the cross-fire of what he sees as an Iraqi civil war.^{[citation needed]}

Congestion pricing

Weiner was one of the first elected officials to oppose Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to introduce congestion pricing policy in New York City.^{[citation needed]} The congestion pricing plan is modeled on the London congestion charge, a fee for motorists entering Central London. The London plan is credited by some with a 17% reduction in traffic and a 35% increase in vehicle speeds in the central business district of London, although its detractors question the figures.^{[citation needed]}

Arab-Israeli conflict

Weiner has been a critic of Columbia University's professors who have made anti-Israeli remarks some have taken as anti-Semitic. ^[14]

In May 2006, Weiner stirred controversy in his attempt to bar entry by the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations.^[15] Weiner claimed that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas does not represent the PLO, and implied that this was because the group is listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Weiner's statement was erroneous,since the PLO has not been on the terrorist organization list since 1988. Weiner further stated that the delegation "should start packing their little Palestinian terrorist bags." Weiner went on to claim that Human Rights Watch, the New York Times, and, in particular, Amnesty International are biased against Israel.^[15]

Health Care

Weiner is an avid advocate of the United States National Health Care Act, which expands Medicare to all Americans.^[16][17] He remarks while Medicare has a 4% overhead rate,^[18] private insurers put 30% of their customer's money into profits and overhead instead of into health care. He points out that private insurers do not provide health care: “insurance compan[ies]…do not do a single checkup, they don't do a single exam, [or] operation”. To anchor Joe Scarborogh he posited “What do private insurers add, what do they bring to the table” three times, leaving Scarborogh “speechless″.^[19]

Weiner believes that a public option “gets you some of the way there”^[19] towards reducing costs, and has set up a web site, countdowntohealthcare.com, to push for the public option in HR 3200. Weiner finds it astounding that congresspeople voted in as a result of the Democratic Party's support of health care are now holding back reform, while claiming that their constituents don't want it. Weiner derides the Republican party, “a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry, teeming up with a small group of democrats to try to protect that industry”. and wants to overcome the “domination of this debate by inaccurate information”.^[20] “Too much of this debate has been dominated by half made-up, mostly made-up and completely made-up things”.^[21]

Objection to Saudi arms deal

On July 29, 2007, Weiner and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced that they would seek to stop a $20 billion arms deal that the Bush Administration had negotiated with Saudi Arabia. The lawmakers objected to the deal because they do not want to provide "sophisticated weapons to a country that they believe has not done enough to stop terrorism," also noting that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Weiner made the announcement outside of the Saudi Arabian consulate in Washington, stating that "We need to send a crystal clear message to the Saudi Arabian government that their tacit approval of terrorism can't go unpunished." Weiner and Nadler intend to use a provision of the Arms Export Control Act to review the deal and pass a Joint Resolution of Disapproval.^[22]

Visas for fashion models

In June 2008, Weiner sponsored a bill that would increase the number of H-1B visas available to foreign models. Weiner argued that increasing the number of visas would help boost the fashion industry in New York City.^[23][24]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Anthony Weiner

• Official House of Representatives site
• Official campaign site
• Anthony Weiner on YouTube
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues
• Profile at SourceWatch Congresspedia
• Video of Weiner discussing legislative priorities in Feb. '07 on the House floor