{"id":10125,"date":"2009-01-23T08:30:09","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T13:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=10125"},"modified":"2009-01-23T18:37:05","modified_gmt":"2009-01-23T23:37:05","slug":"kirsten-gillibrand-to-take-clintons-senate-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/sexuality\/kirsten-gillibrand-to-take-clintons-senate-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirsten Gillibrand to take Clinton’s Senate Seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader,<\/p>\n

Kirsten Gillibrand may be a Democrat, but she’s fiscally conservative, is against gun control, marriage equality and is anti-choice, and voted for the 2008 Farm Bill, which actually hurts<\/em> local farms. She may be blond, and she may be a woman, but that doesn’t make her anything like a proper replacement for Hilary Clinton.<\/p>\n

\"Kirsten
Kirsten Gillibrand. Photo courtesy of US Congress.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gov. Paterson will make the official announcement at 12 noon EST today, but the word is out: 42-year-old Sagittarius, Kirsten Gillibrand, will be filling Hilary Clinton’s empty senate seat. Earlier this week, Caroline Kennedy pulled out of the race, stating that she wants to spend time with her ailing uncle Ted.<\/p>\n

Gillibrand is Congresswoman for the 20th district in New York, one that includes everything from the Saratoga racetrack to FDR’s residence<\/strong><\/a> to the Adirondacks, New York’s greatest wilderness area. According to The New York Times<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, she’s been endorsed by the National Rifle Association, making her an interesting pick, both to replace Clinton and as a Democrat.<\/p>\n

Unlike other candidates for the seat, Gillibrand is born and bred in New York State. She has an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and her law degree from UCLA. Gillibrand has previously worked for the Clinton administration, as Special Counsel to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). She’s been a big advocate for developing and investing in low-income areas.<\/p>\n

I haven’t seen a complete list of her positions, but Gillibrand looks like a real upstate girl: she opposes gun control, is a member of the Blue Dogs: Democrats in favor of fiscal conservatism. She supported the contentious 2008 Farm Bill<\/a><\/strong>. The Bill, while it had some good provisions, predominantly “commits the federal government to subsidizing the destruction of family farming for another five years and invests little in the future of rural communities.” \u0412\u00a0And her position on immigration? She opposed Elliot Spitzer’s plan to give illegal immigrants licenses.<\/p>\n

All in all, she’s pretty conservative for a Democrat and a confusing pick to replace Clinton: you can read a more complete list of Gillibrand’s positions on her official congressional website<\/a><\/strong>. Note the absence of reproductive rights and LGBT rights on the page. Is she undecided, or just unwilling to say?<\/p>\n

The answer: unwilling to say. I just heard on NPR that she is anti-abortion and opposes marriage equality. The only hope we have is that she’ll have to survive a vote next year to keep her seat, so hopefully she won’t do too much damage before then.<\/p>\n

Yours & truly,<\/p>\n

Rachel Asher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader, Kirsten Gillibrand may be a Democrat, but she’s fiscally conservative, is against gun control, marriage equality and is anti-choice, and voted for the 2008 Farm Bill, which actually hurts local farms. She may be blond, and she may be a woman, but that doesn’t make her anything like a proper replacement … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[526,762,392,16,585],"tags":[933,36,52,935,932,934,117,170],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}