After three years in the state Senate, John Mannion has set his sights on Washington DC.
The Syracuse-area Democrat announced his bid for New York’s 22nd Congressional District on Thursday morning, at the Emerald Cocktail Kitchen in his native Tipperary Hill neighborhood. Mannion was flanked by family and local leaders who were endorsing him, including Syracuse Education Commissioner Tamica Barnett, Syracuse Common Counsilor Rashida Caldwell, Onondaga County Legislator Peggy Chase and Assembly members Bill Magnarelli and Al Stirpe.
A former science teacher for nearly 30 years, Mannion is also a former West Genesee Teachers’ Association. At the event, he said he has received endorsements from New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and the CSEA Local 1000, two prominent labor unions.
Mannion hasn't been in state politics long, but was quick to tout his "non-toxic" and bipartisan approach, as well as what he says is one of his biggest accomplishments in the Assembly, a 2022 bill that helped bring Micron to the area.
"I have a few things on my record in the short term that I've been in office," he said. "One is the 'Green CHIPS' legislation." It offers tax incentives to semiconductor (or computer chip) manufacturers who open facilities with over 500 employees while maintaining certain environmental ("green") protections.
"If a semiconductor chip manufacturer hits their job numbers and uses green energy, and in upstate New York, we're better than almost anywhere in the world thing then [with] the ability to generate clean energy. We did not know if Micron or any other semiconductor chip manufacturer was going to come here, but we wanted to be well poised to be able to do it," said Mannion.
Today, he says, "We have the largest private investment in the history of the state of New York coming into my district, and I didn't watch that happen. I made it happen."
Other accomplishments, he said, include creating Syracuse's first dedicated airport police force, and accelerating "middle-class tax cuts. We provided two years of property tax relief. We want affordability so that people can stay here can live here. We want our kids to live here. We want our grandkids to live here."
For that to happen, he says, there needs to be more economic support for local schools, and more economic opportunities overall, in a region he says has among nation’s "highest concentrations of poverty" — especially minority poverty.
Mannion did not mention the word "abortion," but did say, "We exist at a time in this country, where our mothers and our grandmothers have more rights than our daughters, and our grandchildren, our granddaughters, but we have done something in New York State, we have made sure that we protect those rights."
Mannion is the third Democrat to throw a hat into the ring for the Democratic Party's nomination in the this race, following Dewitt Town Councilor Sarah Klee Hood, who began campaigning in February, and Utica University professor Clemmie Harris, who announced his campaign in May.
All three are hoping to unseat incumbent Republican Brandon Williams, originally from Dallas, next year. The 22nd District, which extends from Syracuse to Utica, has been a GOP stronghold for most of the past decade.
