Schumer, Long face off for Senate seat

NY Senior Senator challenged by GOP newcomer

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New York’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Charles Schumer, who has represented the state in both the House and Senate since 1980, is facing a challenge by political newcomer Wendy Long, nominee of the Republican, Conservative and Reform parties.

Schumer, 66, of Brooklyn, began his political career in the State Assembly after graduating from Harvard and Harvard Law School before winning election to Congress, where he represented the 9th District for 18 years. Schumer became a U.S. Senator in 1998.

According to his campaign website, Schumer has visited each of New York’s 63 counties every year that he has been in office, delivered more than $20 billion in aid to New York City after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and championed agricultural measures to preserve market support programs for the state’s dairy farmers and crop growers.

Schumer sits on the Finance Committee; the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; the Judiciary Committee, where he is ranking member of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security; and the Joint Committee on the Library.

Long is an attorney and former homeschool teacher who has called Schumer “a career politician” and says on her website that she is running to keep Schumer from becoming the Senate’s Democratic leader, which she said would likely happen if Democrats were to retake control of the Senate.

Long, 56, of New York City, has a husband and two children, and earned her law degree from Northwestern University School of Law. She also attended Harvard Law School. She served as a law clerk for Judge Ralph K. Winter at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York and at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas.

Long is an unabashed supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who claims that big government, big media, big business and political correctness are “pounding us into submission.”