Maloney Ceremonially Sworn In For 8th Term In Congress
BY THOMAS COGAN

Photo courtesy office of Carolyn Maloney Friday evening, Congressmember Carolyn B. Maloney (D-Manhattan, Queens) was ceremonially sworn in to her eighth term in Congress at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. During the ceremony, Maloney placed her hand on a bible held by her husband, Clif, while Queens Borough President Helen Marshall administered the oath of office. Girl Scout Troop 4494 and Brownie Troop 4496 from the Most Precious Blood School led the Pledge of Allegiance.

Carolyn Maloney was ceremonially sworn in for her eighth term in the U.S. House of Representatives this past Friday at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. Maloney, Congressmember representing the 14th District of New York, an area covering much of Western Queens and also much of Manhattan's old Silk Stocking district and Roosevelt Island, took the oath administered by Queens Borough President Helen Marshall. In attendance at the museum's Riklis Theatre were such Manhattan luminaries as Borough President Scott Stringer and Assemblymember Jonathan Bing and from Queens, Assemblymember Michael Gianaris and City Councilmember Eric Gioia.

Introducing the ceremony was Rochelle Slovin, director of the Museum of the Moving Image, who hailed the "wonderful victory" the Democrats had scored in the 2006 elections, before referring to Maloney as one "who has been enormously helpful to this museum". Maloney has lately steered significant federal funds toward the museum to finance its coming expansion- a renovation that, in Slovin's words, would make the museum half again as large as it is now. After the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of "God Bless America" by Brownies and Girl Scouts from Most Precious Blood, St. Demetrios and Immaculate Conception schools, the Reverend Mitchell Taylor of the East River Development Alliance, said "Prayer changes things," and intoned one of his own, asking God's blessing on Maloney and her constituents. Finally, Marshall prefaced the swearing in by noting that in the 2006 election, Maloney achieved the highest percentage of votes of all 29 congressmembers from the state of New York. She then administered the oath of office to Maloney as the Congresswoman's husband, Clif Maloney, held the Bible.

Maloney began her remarks by calling the Museum of the Moving Image "my daughter's favorite museum" and saying that Marshall is always trying to draw her from Manhattan to do more for Queens. She cited the presence in the audience of Liz Holtzman, former congressmember and Kings County district attorney, calling her "one of my mentors" and a person she often turns to for political advice. She noted that New York sent four new members to Congress, all of them Democrats, as did Pennsylvania. She said that New York should have a lot of clout in the 110th Congress, hailing the fact that Louise Slaughter, from the western part of the state, and Nydia Velázquez and Gary Ackerman, from districts covering Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Nassau County, are now committee heads in the House. She then raced through a list of things to do, from reining in drug prices to assuring cleaner energy. Deploring the power of K Street lobbyists during the past dozen years, she happily referred to the lobby reform bill as the first one passed in the new Congress. She said the 9/11 bill, which she was glad to be part of when it was passed after the World Trade Center attack, is now being revised to bring better distribution of moneys to "risk areas", with smaller amounts going to, say, Wyoming, "where there are more buffaloes than people." Among the reasons for investigating the big oil companies is their extraction of billions of barrels of oil from wells on public lands, she asserted. She was enthusiastic about government support of stem cell research, saying that she had a personal concern, since her father died of Parkinson's disease. (A stem cell research bill, however, faces a presidential veto that is not likely to be overridden.) She said that earlier in the day in Washington, Congressmember Barney Frank of Massachusetts reminded her that when she has formulated legislation such as her foreign investments bill, she now no longer has to hand it in to a Republican.

She turned local, with reference to two projects that would take place almost entirely within her district: construction of the Second Avenue subway and the makeover of Queensboro Plaza. She repeated a popular assertion that the subway line is "the most important public transit project in the United States" and hoped there would eventually be a way to extend it to Queens. The Queensboro Plaza project is funded with $22 million, $19 million of which was secured by her. She closed by deferring to the large Greek population residing in Astoria, saying hopefully that the seemingly intractable Greek-Turkish dispute on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus might actually be yielding to negotiations, with a resulting betterment of conditions for the Greeks who live there.