Following the Fat Man's(Christie) Footsteps!

This past week, on October 29th, was the one year anniversary of Super Storm Sandy, the colossal storm that ravaged the New Jersey and Long Island Coasts. While it happened one year ago, the terror of that day remains in the mind of the people who live through it, and the rebuilding process is still occurring. Timothy Bishop, issued a statement this week showing the great strides he and the long island community have made in preparing for another storm and preventing the damage. "I joined with my colleagues in the Long Island Delegation to overcome the misguided opposition from some in Congress to federal disaster aid, and made a successful bipartisan case for over $60 billion in assistance for our communities. The federal government has partnered with New York State and local governments to develop plans for protecting homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure in hard-hit areas. Emergency coastal stabilization projects on Fire Island and Montauk are now slated to begin construction this winter to rebuild our first line of defense against future storms." In making this statement, Timothy Bishop is showing how he has worked with those affected and established himself as the figurehead of the rebuilding process. This will ultimately be a major point with which he will use in his run for reelection in 2014, much as Chris Christie has been doing in New Jersey.

Perhaps the biggest thing happening for Timothy Bishop this week has been the the "Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2013." This act has garnered the support of a coalition of leading state water and financing programs. This is a monumental win for Timothy Bishop, as he is the senior Democratic leader on the House subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. Bishop's bipartisan water infrastructure investment plan would create American jobs by investing $13.8 billion over five years to improve water quality nationwide. The letter from the coalition will help him make the case for hearings on his legislation in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. To bring the importance home for Long Island, he states that in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy or a similar storm a program like this would greatly benefit the people whose healthy water supplies would be affected. Timothy Bishop's use of Hurricane Sandy as a political tool, especially on the anniversary of the terrible storm, is a key in promoting himself to his constituents as someone who led the way for recovery and prevention of new devastation.