Randy Kuhl

John R. "Randy" Kuhl, Jr.
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 29th district
In office 2005 - present
Preceded by	Amo Houghton
Personal details
Political party	Republican

John R. "Randy" Kuhl, Jr. is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. He represents New York's 29th Congressional district (map), centered on a rural portion of upstate New York's Southern Tier.

Early life and education

Kuhl was born April 19, 1943 in Hammondsport, New York, where he now lives. He graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York with a B.A. in civil engineering in 1966, and then got a law degree from Syracuse University College of Law in 1969. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1970.

New York legislature

Kuhl was a member of the New York Assembly from 1981-1987 and the New York Senate from 1987-2004. His career included posts as the attorney for several municipalities and for including Steuben County. He was appointed the Senate's Assistant Majority Leader for House Operations at the beginning of the 1995 legislative session. During his time in the legislature, he was a practicing lawyer with an office in Bath.

House of Representatives

2004 election

In 2004, Kuhl ran for the House seat of retiring U.S. Representative Amo Houghton, a Republican multimillionaire who had displayed a moderate bent during 18 years in Washington. In the Republican primary, Kuhl, who was supported by Houghton, defeated Monroe County legislator Mark Assini. He then defeated 27-year old Democrat Samara Barend.

The campaign finished out with harsh television commercials casting Barend as devious and untrustworthy and Kuhl as a drunken driver whose breakup with his wife in the 1990s shed doubts on his fitness to hold office. Kuhl, who had been heavily favored in the Republican-leaning 29th District (registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats 3-2), won with 51% of the vote.

Political positions

Kuhl, a veteran New York politician, is among the oldest — and most politically experienced — freshmen of the 2004 House class. He is considered a fairly reliable conservative who generally votes against abortion rights, gun control and tax increases. He has the highest lifetime rating (92%) from the American Conservative Union out of the 29 Representatives from New York state. He is, however, a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership.

Kuhl has said he will fight to make President Bush's tax cuts permanent.

He has supported the Iraq war and rebuilding efforts, saying "we must see this effort through."

Non-Political Life

In 1997, while a state senator, Kuhl was arrested for driving while intoxicated. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of having a blood alcohol content above 0.10 percent, was fined $590 and had his driver's license revoked for six months.

Kuhl divorced in 2000. During the 2004 campaign, several weblogs published Kuhl's divorce records, which had formerly been sealed. In those records, Kuhl's former wife alleged that he abused her emotionally; that he refused to seek counseling for a history of drinking to excess; that he solicited other women for sex; and that he threatened to murder her with two shotguns during a dinner party.

Kuhl and his former wife, Jennifer, called the release of the records "ugly politics" and an invasion of their privacy. While refusing to address their contents, Kuhl said the documents detailed a difficult time in their life but contained "nothing incriminating".

Kuhl and his former wife have three sons.

2006 re-election campaign

Kuhl's Democratic opponent in the 2006 elections is former Navy officer Eric Massa of Corning, a former Republican.

In March 2006, Kuhl invited President George W. Bush to Canandaigua, in Kuhl's district. Bush spoke at Canandaigua Academy, a public high school. After the high school visit with invited guests, Bush's motorcade skipped a trip along the decked-out Main Street welcoming him and took the back roads to the next scheduled stop, Ferris Hills, a senior living community for upper-income residents. (The trip had previously been billed as including a visit to a "nursing home".) President Bush took questions for about fifteen minutes from these seniors about his new prescription-drug plan, Medicare Part D. It is not clear if these residents were the target population of the legislation formulating the plan.

In September 2006, Kuhl welcomed Vice President Dick Cheney to a major fundraiser in Rochester. Kuhl said he couldn't agree more with Cheney's assessment that combating terrorists around the world stands as the top issue of this campaign. A flow of bad news from the war zone needs to be countered by a frank discussion of reality, he said. "They don't necessarily understand the full importance of our presence there," he said of his Finger Lakes and Southern Tier constituents.

External links

• US House website
• Campaign website
• Voting record maintained by the Washington Post