I also danced with Senator Chuck Schumer
For some strange reason, a lot of people were shocked and angered to see New York’s Attorney General Letitia James and the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Chuck Schumer dancing together at a parade.
I wasn’t. I know Chuck Schumer.
I first met the Senator several decades ago at a Rochester Sheetmetal Workers Local 46 Clambake held at the Exempts hall in Irondequoit, NY. I was working for the Rochester Building and Construction Trades Council and Kevin Murray, then a Monroe County Legislator and Majority leader, introduced him to me and asked if I could kind of show him around.
I was a lot younger then. And so was Chuck. He was a Congressman from New York and I didn’t have the slightest idea why in the heck he wanted to know me, but I knew this guy had some sort of future in mind. And, I’m here to tell you that he had a personality the size of Cleveland. He won me over in an instant as it was plain that he cared about working men and women more than any other politician I had ever met.
He was the real deal.
My premonition came true a few years later when he announced he was running for U.S. Senate. He asked for — and I helped him get — his first endorsement from a local Upstate New York Building Trades Council. It soon led to a statewide endorsement of everyone from bricklayers to carpenters, electricians, laborers and sheet metal workers and just about every other union across the state.
He won.
And, he’s proven to be a friend of working families ever since.
Over the years we partnered on dozens of projects that made a difference for them as well as my community as a whole. With the able help of his Rochester Representative, Joe Hamm — a tireless, often faceless, nameless public servant who has devoted his life to helping people like you and me, we worked in support of legislation, put together rallies, letters, visits, introductions, conversations, initiatives, all on behalf of working men and women … not just in the trades, not just in Unions, but everyone.
And whenever we had a rally, and Joe asked me to help get a crowd, I remember me saying … “For Chuck? Gee, not sure I can get maybe more than a couple hundred guys out to greet him!” And when Senator Schumer saw the assembled audience he would say to Joe with a laugh … “This is another ‘Warner Brothers Production’, right?”
He was incredible. His energy infectious. His natural instinct phenomenal. Whether helping make sure that local workers re-built things like the Port of Rochester, or a dozen other projects, or protecting health and safety of workers on the job, he always strived to bring us our fair share of resources from Washington.
He also has guts. For example, when the County Republicans and the Rochester Genesee Regional Transit Authority was trying to get funding for a downtown terminal over the objections of dozens of Rochester Democrats, Chuck moved it forward (and got the “other” Senator, Hillary Clinton to help as well).
For my part, I gave speeches, went to meetings, spoke before legislatures, and to help convince decision makes I even took pictures of just average people braving the snow to get to the bus in the “line up” of busses on main street.
I was alone, mostly, but in the end we did it. It wasn’t the biggest thing I ever did … but it was damn close. And … Chuck Schumer was the guy who made it happen. And, it happened to be $70 or $80 million.
On the day of the ground breaking I was quietly sitting in the front row when one person from the RGRTA said to me, “We should name this place after you for all the work you did to make this a reality” — but in fact, it should have been named for Senator Schumer … he was the one with the foresight (and the courage to set aside politics) to see the need to do something for ordinary people and fix it.
I had advocated for it for 19 years. It took 19 years because no-one really gave a shit about the real issue … no-one, that is, except Senator Schumer. These were Moms and their kids who ride the bus but probably don’t vote, standing in the rain and the cold and the heat and the crummy weather in order to get anywhere. School. Child Care. One of the the three jobs they had to hold to keep their family together. Chuck kind of thought these people were heroes in their own right, I think.
And, he had a heart. When a secretary for the Plumbers Union who had participated in a Schumer press event highlighting the cost of heating her home was stricken with cancer and weeks away from dying, Chuck Schumer took time out to visit her, encourage her, and give her a last glimpse of hope. No fanfare. No cameras. Just Chuck being Chuck. Amazing.
I have a picture on my home office wall of Chuck and I shaking hands. And I have a flag that he gave me that flew over the capital building. Not much really. But mostly, I have incredible memories and stories of working side-by-side with a guy who actually gives a shit about the people he represents.
We did our own dancing in those days, around issues, and projects and other politicians.
I’m pretty much retired now. But the Senator is still on the job and still dancing on behalf on working families.
You can say whatever you want about him, but as for me — I’m proud to have been his partner.