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Francis Conole said his Syracuse roots drive his desire to serve his community. His mother was born on Merriman Avenue in the Southwest neighborhood, and his father was a Carrier Global employee in the 1980s.

Conole, the Democratic nominee for New York’s newly drawn 22nd congressional district, will face off against Republican nominee Brandon Williams in the November general election, and hopes to represent the community that raised him.

“Truly representing the community means working to make people’s lives better,” Conole said.

While Conole acknowledged that Syracuse’s manufacturing jobs of the past are not coming back, he hopes his policies will create a “foundation for opportunity and greater shared prosperity.”

Specifically, he believes that Syracuse’s technology sector holds the most promise for the city. Recent initiatives such as clean energy job creation and the potential microchip manufacturing plant that may be built in Onondaga County as a part of the new CHIPS and Science Act align with Conole’s economic vision for the district.

“As Central New York becomes a stronger force in the New Economy and as our nation grapples with political extremism, these skills are needed now more than ever in Washington DC,” Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh wrote in his endorsement of Conole.

The issue of climate change and clean energy production is one that spans political ideology and age with effects being felt locally, Conole said.

“It’s going to take continued robust investment in making sure we make those transitions,” he said. “It’s an all-hands-on-deck approach.”

During Conole’s 2010 deployment with the Army Special Forces in Iraq, he took the GMAT — the admissions exam for graduate business programs. He used the G.I. Bill to cover 90% of the cost of his MBA, which he received from the University of Maryland.

Because of the impact the G.I. Bill had on him, Conole wants to create and expand similar programs for people who serve the United States in different ways, such as teachers and healthcare workers.

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Conole thinks Biden’s recent relief actions aren’t targeted enough to resolve the issue of student debt. Instead, Conole plans to advocate for reforming interest rates and increasing the value of Pell Grants.

“It was not a holistic reform,” he said. “It was just a little bit of a shot, and then what happens now? So I still think there needs to be more of a holistic approach to this.”

Conole also recalled his family’s experience with accessing health insurance when his father retired from the military. At the time, his mother wouldn’t be covered under TRICARE, a single-payer health insurance option for members of the military, veterans and their families.

While his mother was ultimately able to qualify for his father’s TRICARE coverage, Conole said his mother saw the “astronomical” costs of other plans before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. He said he wants to protect the ACA and expand access to it, especially for dental, hearing and vision for seniors, while lowering prescription drug costs.

“(The cost of healthcare) affects college students. It affects working families. It’s a tax on working families because costs continue to go up,” Conole said. “A lot of young people stay on their parent’s health care until they’re 25, which was a big thing for a lot of college students.”

Conole’s service began nearly two decades ago when he graduated from the Naval Academy in 2001 just months before the Sept. 11 attacks. Despite traveling around the country and world in the years since then, he always loved his community in central New York and wants to fight the challenges facing it.

In the wake of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Conole said he wants to ensure that women across the nation have access to reproductive healthcare. He plans to make Roe’s codification his first priority as an elected official if he wins in November.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be an easy thing to get this passed,” he said. “We are going to have to work hard. We are going to have to think strategic, we’re going to have to chart that path.”

In the short term, Conole said he’ll advocate for legislation that protects access to abortion pills through the mail.

The overturn of Roe and the stripping of other rights from Americans were some of the main reasons Conole decided to run for office.

“We’ve seen the effects of people continuing to fall behind, and now we’re seeing freedoms ripped away from Americans,” he said. “Women across the country are going to have less rights than their mothers. And you see people stand up across the country, people stand up across central New York who say ‘Hell no, we’re not going to stand for freedoms being taken away, for our values being taken away, voting rights, potentially LGBTQ rights.’”

Conole’s bipartisan work and military experience earned him the support of Walsh as well as Utica Mayor Robert Palmieri. He also received an endorsement from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and State Senator Rachel May.

“From his time in the Navy, to serving under Secretaries of Defense of both parties, Fran has shown that same ability to bring people together, find common ground and solve problems,” Walsh wrote in his endorsement.

While Conole has roots in Syracuse, May wants to see him connect more with the other counties in the newly drawn 22nd congressional district.

“He can reach across the aisle and talk to everybody,” May said. “And I think his life experience is also quite valuable to our district at this time.”

Published on September 26, 2022 at 1:47 am

Contact Danny: ddamron@syr.edu | @dannyamron_