DRYDEN — At his latest “Congressman on your Corner” event on Saturday, U.S. Rep. Michael A. Arcuri, D-24th Dist., said only a few words before taking questions from the crowd of close to 50 residents.
His constituents who gathered at Dryden's town hall had a lot to say to the first-term representative. While most people in attendance praised Arcuri's voting record in the House of Representatives, others took issue with his refusal to vote for a bill to impeach vice president Dick Cheney.
“It's incumbent upon you to aggressively pursue impeachment,” said Freeville resident Lynn McMannis. “If we don't hold (the Bush administration) to account, our democracy will go down the drain.” Arcuri defended his vote by recalling his days as a district attorney and said that any impeachment attempts would bring the Legislature and the country to a halt. “I don't think that impeaching the vice president is the best decision,” he said. “I don't think the country can afford to go through with it.”
In between questions, Arcuri cracked jokes about the difficulty of representing the 24th district — which is bigger than the state of Connecticut — and explained his voting rationale behind key decisions. “People want you to agree with them 100 percent of the time, but I have some really tough votes to cast. I try to vote the best way I can,” he said. “It's not going to always be the way everyone else wants — even my mother gives me a hard time about my votes.”