The Man, The Myth, The Engel

Eliot Engel is a man. In fact, he may be the man. He happens to be a man who has served in the US congressional office since 1989 and has represented 3 districts over 12 terms in office. His constituency largely consists of people quickly approaching, or already at, the age of retirement and their elder years. When you look at Engel’s campaigns you won’t be surprised to find Medicare, social security, and veteran affairs on the forefront of his agenda. Those are his people, those are his issues, and that’s the way it has been from the start. Something interesting about Congressman Engel’s tenure though is the redistricting through his areas and how that has affected his career.

FairVote, a nonpartisan thinktank that analyzes elections and electoral reforms published a study breaking down the restricting after 2010 throughout the nation. (FairVote. "Monopoly Politics 2012". FairVote. 2012. September 2012. http://www.fairvote.org/assets/2012-Redistricting/NYRedistrictingAnalysis.pdf) It labeled districts as safe for respective parties, leaning towards parties, or toss-ups. Before the redistricting Engel represented the 16^th district, but now represents the 17^th. The difference in districts isn’t substantial and actually didn’t force Engel to change much of his platform. Both the old and new district strongly favor Democrats and are considered safe for the party to count as a seat before the elections roll through. It’s interesting to see how parties influence and approve of redistricting measures to secure seats for themselves, and make strategic decisions about which seats to sacrifice. For Engel this played out phenomenally as he now runs unopposed. It seems strange to me that Engel is so well-liked when he appears to play to the fears of his constituency.

Congressman Engel’s current district has about 36% of its population at an age where they are concerned with social security and the protection of their revenue. Though the mean income is only slightly above average per household at $76,000, when you include earning per household it more than doubles to $188,000. He pledges to protect their funds, which implicitly seems to play to the fear that they may lose them. These issues seem to be clear-cut historically in the New York area, yet Engel thinks these issues are far from over. To put an issue that has been secure on the forefront of an agenda makes a constituency question its securities and places doubt in the back of their mind.

Eliot Engel is not a bad guy. He wants to protect his people and keep them financially stable in a world of financial instability. At this point in the game though, he has the political capital to be a “big boss”. In a state like New York those progressive issues are a lot easier to address, but maybe with his voting demographic he just doesn’t want to rock the boat. It seems to be a missed opportunity that he doesn’t change his agenda a little bit to include an issue or two that is slightly more progressive.