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United States Senator Charles "Chuck" Schumer
United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
United States Congressman - 24th District - John Katko
 

 

United States Senator Charles "Chuck" Schumer

U.S. Senator Charles “Chuck” Ellis Schumer has dedicated his career to protecting the middle class and helping those working to reach it. Though he has become a leader in finding common sense solutions to national issues, Chuck has built a reputation as a tireless fighter for New York, visiting all 62 counties every year and talking to constituents in every corner of our state.

Chuck was born in Brooklyn, NY on November 23, 1950 to parents Selma, a homemaker active in the community, and Abe, who owned a small exterminating business. Chuck grew up the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood and with his siblings, Fran and Robert, attended PS 197 and Madison High School. Chuck has two daughters, Jessica and Alison, and he still resides in Brooklyn with his wife, Iris Weinshall.

After graduating from Harvard College and Harvard Law School in 1974, Chuck returned home and was elected to the New York State Assembly where he soon made his mark with his trademark vigor and tireless advocacy. In 1980, at 29, Chuck ran for and won the seat in the 9th Congressional District.

Chuck represented the 9th CD in Brooklyn and Queens for eighteen years, where he established his reputation as a pioneer in the fight against crime and as a consumer advocate. Chuck authored the Omnibus Crime Bill, which put 100,000 new cops on the street. He was the leading sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act, to combat domestic violence and sexual assault, and the Brady Bill, which instituted mandatory background checks for handgun purchases. He co-wrote the Assault Weapons Ban, and sponsored the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which organized data on crimes of bigotry and allowed federal authorities to prosecute these crimes. He also sponsored legislation that required banks and credit card companies to provide greater disclosure to consumers.

In 1998, Chuck was elected to the U.S. Senate; he became New York's senior senator when Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan retired in 2000. Chuck kicked off his first Senate term by announcing he would visit each of New York's 62 counties every year, a tradition he continues today. Doing so has enabled Chuck to keep in touch with voters from every corner of the state.

Throughout his time in the Senate, Chuck has made improving New York's economy his top priority, bringing affordable air service to Upstate New York and the Hudson Valley and delivering over $20 billion in aid to New York City following the attacks on September 11, 2001. Chuck was the author of legislation that eliminated barriers that delay low-cost generic medications from entering the marketplace and led the charge to make college tuition tax deductible. He also aggressively championed agricultural measures to preserve vital market support programs for New York’s dairy farmers and crop growers.

After New Yorkers re-elected him in 2004, Chuck was awarded two powerful posts by his colleagues. The first, a seat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the nation’s tax, trade, social security and health care legislation. The second honor was the Chairmanship of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Chuck successfully led the DSCC for two consecutive cycles before stepping down at the end of 2008.

Following the elections of 2006, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appointed Chuck to serve as Vice Chair of the Democratic Conference, the number three position on the Democratic Leadership team and a position he continues to hold. After New Yorkers re-elected him for a third term in 2010, Chuck took on an expanded role in the Senate as Chairman of the Democratic Policy and Communications Center.  Chuck also serves as the Ranking Member on the Senate Rules Committee, which oversees federal elections, voting rights, campaign finance, and the operation of the Senate complex.

In addition, Chuck sits on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; the Judiciary Committee, where he is Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security; and the Joint Committee on the Library.

Syracuse

100 South Clinton Street, Room 841
Syracuse, NY 13261
Phone: (315) 423-5471
Fax:  (315) 423-5185

Washington, D.C.

322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-6542
Fax:  (202) 228-3027
TDD:  (202) 224-0420
 

 

United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Born and raised in upstate New York, Senator Gillibrand's home is in Brunswick, New York, with her husband, Jonathan Gillibrand, and their two young sons, twelve-year-old Theodore and seven-year-old Henry.

Throughout her time in Congress, Senator Gillibrand has been committed to open and honest government. When she was first elected, she pledged to bring unprecedented transparency and access to her post. She became the first Member of Congress to post her official public schedule, personal financial disclosure, and federal earmark requests online. The New York Times called Gillibrand's commitment to transparency a "quiet touch of revolution" in Washington, and The Sunlight Foundation, the leading advocacy organization dedicated to making government more open and transparent, praised Senator Gillibrand as a pioneer for her work. For more information, visit Senator Gillibrand's Sunlight Report at 

Senator Gillibrand's number one priority in the U.S. Senate is to rebuild the American economy, by creating good-paying jobs, helping small businesses get loans, and partnering with the private sector to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. She wrote new legislation to strengthen and retool New York’s manufacturers, stamp more products with the words “Made in America,” and create new manufacturing jobs in New York.

Throughout her time in the Senate, Senator Gillibrand has led on a range of issues, from the fight to repeal the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" that banned gays from serving openly in the military, to passage of the STOCK Act, to finally make it illegal for members of Congress to financially benefit from inside information, to the long fight to provide permanent health care and compensation to the 9/11 first responders and community survivors who are sick with diseases caused by the toxins at Ground Zero. Senator Gillibrand worked to bring Democrats and Republicans together to win these legislative victories.

From her seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gillibrand has been a vocal advocate for strengthening America's armed services, national security and military readiness. In 2013, as chair of the sub-committee on personnel, she held the first Senate hearing on the issue of sexual assault in the military in almost a decade. Gillibrand went on to lead the fight in reforming how the military handles sexual assault cases, building a broad bipartisan coalition of 55 Senators in support of legislation to remove sexual assault cases from the chain of command.

Senator Gillibrand is also leading the fight to end the sexual assault epidemic on our college campuses. Along with Senator Claire McCaskill, Kirsten has won the support of a broad bipartisan group of Senate co-sponsors for the Campus Accountability and Safety Act designed to hold colleges accountable and to flip the incentives so that colleges no longer sweep sexual assaults under the rug.

As the mother of two young children, Senator Gillibrand knows that working families are struggling in this difficult economy and has a legislative agenda that puts middle class and working families first.  As a champion for the economic empowerment of women & working families, Senator Gillibrand has proposed her Opportunity Agenda to re-write the rules of the workplace to ensure that every working woman has the ability to remain in the workforce and earn her full economic potential. This agenda includes providing paid family & medical leave, raising the minimum wage, making quality child care affordable, creating universal pre-K, and ensuring equal pay for equal work. Gillibrand's FAMILY Act would create a national paid leave program for all workers for less than the cost of a cup of coffee a week per employee.

After winning 58 votes for her gun trafficking legislation in 2013, coming just two votes shy of overcoming a filibuster, Senator Gillibrand introduced the Hadiya Pendleton and Nyasia Pryear-Yard Gun Trafficking and Crime Prevention Act with Senator Mark Kirk in 2015. This legislation would finally make gun trafficking a federal crime and give law enforcement the tools it needs to stop the flow of illegal guns into our communities. Also in 2015, Senator Gillibrand introduced the CARERS Act with Senators Cory Booker and Rand Paul to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule 2 drug and enable our families to access critical treatment in states where medical marijuana is legal. 

As the first New York Senator to sit on the Agriculture Committee in nearly 40 years, Senator Gillibrand is giving New York families the seat at the table they deserve. She worked hard to strengthen the 2012 Farm Bill for New York by strengthening specialty crops, expanding rural broadband and improving recovery efforts from natural disasters. She also led the unsuccessful fight to stop billions in devastating cuts to nutritional assistance for struggling children, seniors and veterans.

From her seat on the Aging Committee, Senator Gillibrand is committed to fighting on behalf of seniors, working to lower the cost of prescription drugs, make long-term care more affordable so seniors can remain independent for as long as they are able, and protect seniors from financial fraud. Senator Gillibrand is fighting to ensure that drug information provided to seniors and all consumers is clear, concise and up-to-date.

After attending Albany's Academy of Holy Names, Senator Gillibrand graduated in 1984 from Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, the first all women's high school in the United States. A magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College in 1988, Gillibrand went on to receive her law degree from the UCLA School of Law in 1991 and served as a law clerk on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

After working as an attorney in New York City for more than a decade, Senator Gillibrand served as Special Counsel to United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Andrew Cuomo during the Clinton Administration. She then worked as an attorney in Upstate New York before becoming a member of Congress.

Syracuse/Central NY

James M. Hanley Federal Building
100 South Clinton Street
Room 1470
PO Box 7378
Syracuse, NY 13261
Tel. (315) 448-0470
Fax (315) 448-0476

Washington, DC Office

478 Russell
Washington, DC 20510
Tel. (202) 224-4451
Fax (202) 228-0282

 

 

United States Congressman - 24th District - John Katko

Congressman John M. Katko was elected to represent the 24th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2014.   The 24th Congressional District includes all of Onondaga, Cayuga, and Wayne Counties and a portion of Oswego County. 

A Camillus, NY native, John left his 20-year career as a federal prosecutor to run for public office because he believes Central New York deserves strong, independent leadership in Washington.

In Congress, John serves as a member of the House Homeland Security Committee as Chair of the Transportation Security subcommittee.  He also serves on the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure. 

FORMER PROSECUTOR

After graduating with honors from both Niagara University and Syracuse University College of Law, John began his legal career in private practice at a firm in Washington, D.C.  It was not long before John embarked on a career in public service, serving first as a Senior Trial Attorney at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and then commencing his twenty-year career as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice.   Early in his career as a federal prosecutor, John served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and with the DOJ’s Criminal Division, Narcotics & Dangerous Drug Section.   In this capacity, John served as a Senior Trial Attorney on the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas and in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 

John and his wife, Robin, ultimately returned to John’s hometown of Camillus, NY to raise their family.  For over 15 years, John served as a federal organized crime prosecutor in Syracuse for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of New York.   In this role, John led high-level narcotics federal prosecutions, concurrently holding the positions of Narcotics Chief, Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Coordinator, Binghamton Office Supervisor, Team Leader, and Grand Jury Coordinator.  Notably, John served as Supervisor of the Narcotics Section, formulating the Syracuse Gang Violence Task Force and successfully prosecuting the first-ever RICO gang case in the City of Syracuse, which led to a significant drop in the City’s violent crime rate.

John has been honored with the top prosecutor award by three separate Attorneys General, both Democrat and Republican, for his work on the Gang Violence Task Force and international drug-trafficking investigations.   John has lectured at Syracuse University College of Law and Cornell Law School, and has led attorney trainings for criminal investigations and prosecutions worldwide in Moscow, Croatia, Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil, and El Salvador.  In 2011, John was selected to be the sole U.S. advisor on a highly sensitive prosecution in Albania.

John retired from the U.S. Department of Justice in January 2013 to run for Congress.

THE KATKO FAMILY

John and Robin, an RN working in women’s healthcare, are college sweethearts and have been married for over 28 years.  John, Robin and their three children, Sean, Liam, and Logan, live in Camillus with their beloved black lab, Sadie.   Sean is in the Army ROTC program at SUNY Geneseo and Logan and Liam are in high school.   All three of the Katko boys are enthusiastic hockey players.

John remains active the Central New York community.  He has served as President of the Central New York Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and is actively involved in other community organizations, including the Onondaga County Foster Parent Program and the Camillus Youth Hockey Association.

Oswego, NY Regional Office

13 W. Oneida St., 2nd Floor
Oswego, NY 13126
Open Wednesdays, 10:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.

Washington, DC Office

1123 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3701
Fax: (202) 225-4042

 

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