The Democratic Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand will be the next Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's now-vacant U.S. Senate seat.Gillibrand is a moderate Democrat, the 42-year-old mother of two young children who lives in Hudson, N.Y., and is in her second House term.Most important, perhaps, for Paterson, Gillibrand gives him not only a female on his ticket in next year's statewide elections, when she must run to fill the remaining two years of Clinton's term; Gillibrand's also an upstater to balance the dominant downstate power of New Yorkers like himself and Clinton that arouses such traditional resentment in the north.She's known as a Blue Dog Democrat, not always popular with liberals for her support of the National Rifle Assn. in her significantly rural 20th District, but said to be Clinton's favorite as her replacement. The new Senator is a supporter of research into possible connections between vaccines and autism.
In the 110th Congress, Representative Gillibrand was one of 22 Co sponsor of HR 2832, the "Comprehensive Comparative Study of Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Populations Act of 2007." This bill would direct the Secretary of HHS "to conduct or support a comprehensive study comparing total health outcomes, including risk of autism, in vaccinated populations in the United States with such outcomes in unvaccinated populations in the United States."
Ms. Gillibrand could hardly be labeled as "anti-vaccine" - nor could the bill that she cosponsored, which was introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), another short-list contender to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.
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