Eyes on Washington: Hughes, LoBiondo in Contest to Represent District

(CORRECTION: In the question regarding gridlock, Rep. LoBiondo was among 20-25 who voted against measures deemed detrimental to the nation. That word should have been in the original copy, as well as in the printed Oct. 1 edition.)
RIO GRANDE – Republican incumbent Frank A. LoBiondo, 68, in Congress since 1995, and Democrat William J. Hughes Jr., 47, have their eyes set on the seat in the U.S. Capitol that represents the Second Congressional District.
It is a vast region that encompasses Cape May, Atlantic, Cumberland, and Salem counties as well as and parts of Camden, Gloucester, Ocean and Burlington counties. It fronts Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and is noted for its tourism due to sandy beaches, commercial fishing, highly ranked along the East Coast and nation, and casinos in Atlantic City.
LoBiondo operated his family’s trucking firm prior to being elected to Congress.
Hughes, son of former congressman and ambassador William J. Hughes, was an assistant U.S. Attorney in Camden. He is a practicing attorney in Atlantic City.
Both are married. Hughes has three children.
The Herald interviewed both. It asked the same questions that ranged from each one’s outlook on the economy to education. The following is a summary of their responses:
What is the most pressing issue in the district and what can a U.S. Representative do about it?
Hughes: Jobs and the economy. That is the reason that I am running today. Very simply I do not believe the work has been getting done. Our lives are changing and not for the better. I saw the storm clouds. The economy is turning south in South Jersey and our lives are being impacted. We have a choice, we can roll with the punches or we can try and make a difference in what is happening in the community and in the region.
Hughes believes a congressman could push for international flights to India and China from Atlantic City International Airport that could improve the region’s economy, along with creating Foreign Trade Zones to bolster manufacturing.
LoBiondo: Jobs and the economy continue to be the top issue in the district. From a federal perspective, having the federal government establish a climate where business can create or retain existing jobs is important. This is done through certainty and stability, both of which I think are lacking in Washington. The president’s health care bill threw a bucket of cold water on small business. It’s a great burden on small businesses.
LoBiondo cited overzealous regulations, such as the commercial fishing industry which faces stiff penalties for letting untreated rainwater run off decks into the sea. “It’s absurd and out of kilter,” he said, “bureaucrats in Washington” are stifling business.
If elected (re-elected) what items would top your agenda in January to benefit the district?
LoBiondo: On a broad base, continue to make sure we have resources for Army Corps of Engineers beach replenishment projects. FAA Technical Center, designated do all validation for the nation’s transition to the next generation of air traffic control from radar to satellite-based system…has tremendous economic benefit…but since we would be the center of this it has enormous implications for us. The quality of life issues with UAS (unmanned aerial systems) are almost limitless, they will change lives and make them better.
He cited legislation he sponsored when the FAA was “dragging their feet, we forced them” to identify six national tests sites to research and evaluate how UAS could be brought into domestic air space. The FAA Technical Center in Pomona, which employs 4,000, will take a lead, and evaluate data from throughout the nation.
Hughes: Jobs and number two for the immediate benefit is extending unemployment benefits for the recently unemployed. By that time they are going to be running out of unemployment benefits. (He said LoBiondo and seven other GOP members signed a letter to bring an unemployment bill to the floor for a vote, yet he refused to sign a discharge petition to permit it.) You’ve got to match actions with words if you want it to come to a floor vote. I have a good life, a career I love, a good practice and wonderful family. I am willing to give up the practice for the work that has to get done.
Do you believe the gridlock in Congress benefits the nation? What would you do to maintain or break that situation, or can you?
Hughes: First thing I will do, I would not blindly follow my Democratic Party. Neither party has all the answers. This campaign, my platform begins and ends with being bipartisan. My campaign chairman is a Republican. I have support of rank-and-file conservatives, independents and Democrats. If gridlock is impacting us here in South Jersey…we need someone to stand up. It’s not enough to say, you have to actually do something about it. I am not afraid of losing my job and standing in the Democratic Party if I am fighting on behalf of the Constitution and for South Jersey.
Asked by a member of Cape Issues how a freshman congressman could break gridlock, Hughes replied “Looking back at a young freshman class of 1995, (when his opponent started) they had an impact. They had an impact on the shape of what the agenda was.”
LoBiondo: Mostly it does not. The ability to stop the president from initiating something that would be bad for the country, if you call that gridlock. I have demonstrated by how I have conducted myself and what I’ve voted for and pushed to break partisan strangleholds. I was one of only a handful, 20-25 Republicans, to vote against a number of measures that I think were detrimental to the country, shutting down the government having the country default. I’ve always put the district first; working in bipartisan way is what the country, what the district wants. The Aviation Committee I chair, there is not a whisper of partisan wrangling.
Do you believe the nation is headed in the correct direction? If not, what will you do to help redirect it?
LoBiondo: I don’t think we are headed in the right direction. The economy is very sluggish, the job situation is not at all acceptable. I think there has to be a real-world approach solving the economic problems to get the country in the right direction. The House cannot do it alone. All the jobs measures were passed, 200-300 bills House to Senate, it was very bipartisan on final passage. The Senate was not obligated to acknowledge they exist. We can’t have an academic approach with creating jobs that look good and don’t work when you get them on Rio Grande Boulevard or Main Street. We have to start asking people who sign the front of the paychecks.
Hughes: Not in the right direction. I think domestically we need to make sense of the tax code for small and medium-sized businesses so they can create jobs. We have a $17-trillion deficit. The only way to get out is to expand our economy. We should simplify the tax code for small and medium-sized businesses. We should be reducing taxes (on them). We need to stop corporate inversions, it is sucking money out of the country. We need to work to curb the impact of what hedge funds are doing taking money overseas.
How should we address international terrorism (ISIS and Russia?)
Hughes: Everything that we do has a ripple effect. We have to proceed very carefully in terms of combating terrorism. We have to send a clear and strong message that we will strike anywhere at any time if we believe our national security is at risk. And we must mean that. I don’t believe the president sent out a consistent message in that regard. We have to be ever mindful that what we do will have consequences in the long run, no matter what our choice is. Prior to going into Iraq there was no al Qaeda, we had a despot there who abused his own people without question, but he kept the Islamic fundamentals at bay on one hand and Iran at bay on the other. Everything that we do must have a purpose and must be done with an eye of what all potential outcomes maybe. I don’t believe we have done that in both Republican and Democrat administrations. Take a hard line with Russia.
LoBiondo: I have been in Africa for about the last two weeks for the House Intelligence Committee. From an intelligence perspective, in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East all these (terrorist) groups are gaining strength. Because of our lack of policy, lack of strategy and initiative, these (terrorist) groups are growing in strength and growing together. They all have a stated purpose of attacking America. Democrats and Republicans, at least on the Intelligence Committee are speaking pretty unanimously about this. They are encouraging the president to present a strategy, and let us debate it; let us give him the authorization he needs so there’s no misunderstanding. not a commitment to soldiers in Iraq. We can’t do that. The president can’t make declarative statements and then have that line be drawn at low tide along the beach.
Since the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center is an integral economic factor in Cape May County, what can, or will, you do to help continue its existence?
LoBiondo: One of the first challenges I faced was an official proposal to move the Coast Guard Training Center to Petaluma, Calif. Sen. (Frank) Lautenberg, as an example of bipartisanship, put shoulder to the wheel and was a great partner in this. Cape May County and city mobilized. We made an airtight case, once it was settled it would be kept here, I made myself a promise that I would do everything under my power to make sure no one would do anything like that ever again. So we have embarked on strengthening that footprint, it’s increased almost every year. Last year we cut the ribbon on the new boat station and combination building. It was the only dedication of the Coast Guard in the nation. Every captain who has come in has taken a different initiative. We got money for the piers. We have that footprint strengthened now. This is the same model we used for the 177th Fighter Wing.
Hughes: One of the things that should have been done, it’s not been done is to obtain the funding for the critical infrastructure relating to the dock. Apparently we are losing the cutters because we can’t get the refurbishments to the dock. You need to fight for that. That hasn’t been done. It’s not like it’s a secret the dock needed to be refurbished. That is the first thing. Make sure we continue that we grow, make sure this area remains crucial to the protection of the homeland and that it has the infrastructure it needs to keep the equipment and men and women there.
Along that same line, commercial fishing is a primary economic driver in Cape May County, what can a congressman do to ease the burdens of the industry?
Hughes: We have to continue to support good science with regard to quotas. Regulators are out of control. I am shocked at how out of control NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is and the silence of the congressman along the commercial fishing border as to the problems here. The special masters report…for minor violations imposing maximum penalties, violating the constitutional rights of the fishermen, imposing massive fines. They were going on trips, buying luxury vehicles. Abuses were legendary. This is what we have. Regulators thus become the enemy of the commercial fisherman. Not to say we should not enforce the quota system, enforce the law, but with an eye to moderation that regulators should not act like enemies of the industry, which is exactly how they’ve been acting.
LoBiondo: I would that hope we could spread the word that in the United States we (cape May) are the fourth largest commercial seaport. On the East Coast we are the second largest. The economic benefit and jobs associated with that are critical and essential to our wellbeing. A lot of this challenge to our commercial fishing industry is by rulemaking and regulation, which is what happened with the incidental desk wash. If we can continue to understand the challenges the commercial fishing industry and the dialog and relationship that I, and I believe the senators have had, we are commercial fishing leaders. We meet on a regular basis. When we see a problem, I immediately spring into action, develop a plan, make sure our position … is solid. We want to tell them why this rule doesn’t make sense, and how they have to bring their ideas into the real world. I bring real world people in those meetings.
The state’s, and this county’s beaches, represent an enormous attraction for tourism, and to bring in new residents, what will you do to help fund their maintenance (and repair?)
LoBiondo: You may recall the hand to hand combat that we had over the supplemental appropriation after Sandy. A lot of my colleagues that come from districts that have natural disasters, who just assume this is the way to go, I’m talking Florida, California, Louisiana, places like that all of a sudden when it was New Jersey’s turn that we should be treated differently. This was a pretty intense period. I had to take on the leadership of my party, and those reports that the Speaker of the House yelled at me are all accurate, but I was determined that we were going to get the help that we needed that everybody else should get in our situation. Part of what we did with that, broke into three parts, federal flood insurance policies, into central part what FEMA needed for satisfying policies, third part we added on mitigation fund with flexibility. We saw we needed to be able to have the Army Corps redo our beaches at 100 percent federal, the 65-35 percent is in place again, was waived this period of time, at zero cost to local taxpayer. Not the burden on the local community. Many of these projects, we would have done them, but it would have taken a lot longer. This is a big bonus. I think we’re in really good shape with how this was handled. Presidents of both parties have cut funding on Army Corps projects. It will require more attention than ever for coastal legislators to do their job in bipartisan way. This isn’t about people getting a sun tan, we’re talking jobs and the economy.
Hughes: My dad (former Rep. William J. Hughes) secured for 50 years the beach replenishment. We have to make sure we have a stable and steady funding source for that. More importantly we have done nothing in the back bays and inland waterway. We have a guy who sits on the Armed Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Army Corps of Engineers. What we need to be doing is create working groups in various county state, federal local work on one, identifying spoil sites, identify funding sources and specific tasks going out that say Mr. Congressman, your job is to go out and secure the funding for this. And if I were on the Armed Services Committee, I would have my foot on the back of the Army Corps of Engineers saying “So when are you dredging?” It’s a matter of Congress. It isn’t like we’re talking about a private lagoon. We’re talking about Inland Waterway, it is vital to our commercial fishing fleet. We generate billions of dollars of revenue through recreational fishing. That money pays off.
Do you believe the Common Core Curriculum should be maintained in schools, or should it be abolished?
Hughes: My problem is teaching to the test. You teach to the test and then nothing else. That’s what we’ve got to get around. We take a look at what other countries developed countries are doing. and we need to match them. We are the ones we are competing against, but you know, their kids are getting out of high school far more advanced than ours are, particularly in the science and math areas. We need to redouble our efforts and reexamine, verify our means of progress along the route. We need to establish a system that forces out teachers to teach to some objective and arbitrary standard in my view. Let the teachers teach. We have to have a way of making sure they get there.
LoBiondo: I’m adamantly opposed to it. It is taking direction away from local decision making. The federal government does not play a direct role here. We have had an indirect role, one vote on the sense of Congress, nonbinding, that local control has to be maintained and preserved HR 476, that was recently introduced. I will be a co-sponsor (of that bill) that education be maintained under local control, not Washington taking control.