Political Candidates Speak Out:
Backgrounds, Goals Explained
Meet a Candidate for Congress, District 19, for Election Day, November 8, 2022
Publisher’s Note: We sent out an e-mail asking the candidates for the major political races next week to share information about themselves, so our readers can get to know them a little better. Every candidate had the opportunity to return their answers. We asked them:
A. Please tell us about yourself.
B. If you were elected to office, what are your top priorities and why?
We have run these answers over the last few weeks, in hopes this will help in your decision-making process on Tuesday, November 8. Please get out and vote!
JOSH RILEY—DEM, WFP
Running for Congress, 19th District
A. I’m a fifth-generation Upstate New Yorker. My family came here over 100 years ago to work in the local factories. My dad was a maintenance worker in the IBM plants, and my mom served in law enforcement. As I was growing up, the plants closed down and good jobs were shipped overseas. I saw working families struggle even as Wall Street was booming and corporate profits were soaring. There’s corruption in our politics and greed in our economy, and the deck is stacked against working folks in Upstate New York and in favor of special interests and career politicians.
I’ve spent my career fighting back. The values and work ethic I learned here—and my public school education—allowed me to become an attorney. In my first case out of law school, I represented kids from low-income families who were having trouble getting access to healthcare services. I clerked for a federal appeals judge, studying our Constitution. I worked as counsel in the U.S. Senate, where I brought Democrats and Republicans together to fight the opioid epidemic and support survivors of domestic violence. As an attorney in private practice, I fought insurance companies that raised their rates on small businesses, and I argued for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to enshrine women’s equality into the law.
Now I’m running for Congress to represent the community that raised me. I’m the only candidate who is not accepting any corporate PAC money because I’ll always put Upstate New York first.
B. Let’s get corporate money out of politics. Today, corporations create Political Action Committees, or PACs, which contribute millions to candidates who vote for their interests instead of yours. Cable companies pay politicians to limit your choice of providers. Pharmaceutical companies pay politicians to keep prices high. Oil companies pay politicians who deny climate change. I believe we should end this practice. That’s why I’m the only candidate in this race who has never accepted a penny of corporate PAC money, and I never will, because I am going to Congress to fight for the community that raised me—not the special interests.