Lancman on Turner: 'We Need a Real Congressman'

Assemblyman Rory Lancman, D-Fresh Meadows, a five-year veteran of the state Legislature, might not be familiar to Forest Hills residents. He’s not a legacy politician in Queens and he’s not much of a fire-breather.

In the last few months, however, he’s started to model himself into something else entirely, or so he hopes: the Republican Party’s worst nightmare.

Lancman came out swinging on Tuesday, announcing his vie for the Democratic candidacy of the Ninth District before he got an official blessing from the Queens Democratic Party.

He has already launched a website for his exploratory committee.

In an interview, he was careful not to claim the nomination, only saying he was intending to run on that line, but he hit U.S. Rep. Bob Turner, R-Forest Hills, hard with the kind of body blows you usually only hear during the campaign proper.

“The deck is stacked against working people - it has been for a long time and the Republican Congress is more a problem than it is a solution,” Lancman said.

He wasn’t shy in attacking Turner directly, faulting him for his first vote in Congress in favor of the Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act.

While the bill’s aim was to prevent companies from ordering employees to move for their jobs, some critics say it could make it easier for corporations to outsource jobs overseas.

“The second big thing that Bob Turner did was to vote against raising the debt ceiling, and force us to relive the whole debacle of last summer,” Lancman said. “This is not the kind of representation that I want for me and my family in Washington.”

Lancman said he was confident because he believed voters in the Ninth District would see him as more qualified than the man they sent to Washington just six months ago.

“Bob Turner was elected on the platform of sending a message to Washington,” Lancman said. “Alright, the message was sent, now we need to send a real congressman. Someone to go in there, be an advocate for people in the district and have the drive to deliver results.”

The three-term assemblyman framed his campaign in terms that voters are likely to see quite a bit this year: the haves versus the have-nots in the Ninth District.

“It’s a problem everywhere,” He said. “There’s something wrong with a system of taxation where the vast majority of the people in the Ninth District are paying a higher tax rate than Mitt Romney, who made $40 million dollars last year.”