Claudia Tenney talks abortion, gun control and federal funding
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The Supreme Court’s conservative majority decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June was met with agreement by anti-abortion politicians like U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford.
Tenney contested the Supreme Court’s original decision in Roe was wrongly decided and a right to abortion has not been guaranteed or protected by the Constitution. In the original decision on Roe, the Supreme Court extended the right to privacy to protect abortion access under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
“What the Court did is what it should have done 49 years ago, is left this up to the states,” Tenney said.
Abortion rights are protected in New York, codified by the 2019 Reproductive Health Act. The law decriminalized abortion and permits abortion after 24 weeks if the fetus is not viable or to protect the mother’s life.
Tenney opposed the legislation, which was originally introduced in 2006, during her time in the state Assembly.
“Abortion is not going to go away,” she said. “I’m pro-life. I want to do everything I can to advocate for pro-life policies.”
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Tenney said she recognizes rape and incest as exceptions in regard to her anti-abortion stance. She said she believes more people will choose adoption following the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
“I do recognize that this is a cultural change,” Tenney said. “I don’t want to criminalize women. We’ve had 50 years of this case and it’s going to take time and advocacy and compassion to move us in a pro-life direction.”
Gun control
Tenney also supported the Supreme Court decision to strike down a New York law requiring residents to prove "proper cause" to carry a handgun. The case centered around two Rensselaer County residents who were denied conceal carry permits for personal protection outside the home.
The congresswoman led an amicus brief, backed by 168 House representatives, which offered insight into the ways its sponsors believed the state law violated Second Amendment rights.
Tenney criticized the most recent state gun reforms, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on July 1, which include new requirements for pistol permit applications and establish limits on where guns can be carried in public.
State and local officials criticized the new gun reforms during a press conference on July 13 at the state office building in Utica.
One of the new requirements includes turning over a list of current and former social media accounts in the previous three years.
“These are going to unelected police clerks and not elected officials to make those determinations on pistol permits,” Tenney said. “I think there’s a lot of problems that make these facially invalid and we’re looking into … potentially, a clarification application to the Supreme Court to weigh in on some of these laws because they obviously were rushed.”
Tenney said she wants a solution to the problem of mass shootings but doesn’t want knee jerk reactions that take away the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Community Project Funding
More than $27 million in federal funds have been allocated through the Community Project Funding process for 14 projects in New York’s 22nd Congressional District, Tenney announced on July 6.
The projects include:
$864,078 for Binghamton Community Policing and Crime Prevention
$2,850,000 for City of Norwich water main replacement
$3,000,000 for City of Rome Park Drive revitalization project
$2,995,000 for Cortland rural mental health facility capital project
$3,000,000 for Griffiss Institute Smart-X Internet of Things (IOT) Living Lab
$1,000,000 for Oneida Health System behavioral health services
$1,580,628 for Tioga County Soil and Water Conservation District Upper Susquehanna watershed community resiliency
$2,351,200 for Town of Orwell water system improvements
$1,000,000 for Town of Schuyler Graham, Brown and Newport Road Water District
$227,400 for Town of Whitestown buy-out of repetitive flood loss properties
$734,014 for Utica University crime lab
$2,000,000 for Valley Health Services skilled nursing and neurobehavioral care facility
$1,507,605 for Village of Canastota South Canal, Commerce and State Street sewer separation
$4,152,000 for Village of Oneida Castle sanitary sewer collection system
The projects are funded through existing federal programs. Tenney’s office received more than 100 requests, with the majority focused on water and sewer projects.
“We try to … put projects in place in order of priority and then we try to make sure that we’re including every region of the district in there,” Tenney said.
The Observer-Dispatch interviews U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford, each month about current issues related to the Mohawk Valley and federal government.
Steve Howe is the city reporter for the Observer-Dispatch. Email him at showe@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Claudia Tenney talks about abortion, gun control and federal funding
