National and local experts expect New York’s 22nd Congressional District to stay blue. John Mannion, pictured here on Election Night 2024, believes the 22nd Congressional District is still a heavily contested seat. Credit: Surya Vaidy | Central Current

Rep. John Mannion has declined to participate in a debate set to be hosted by Central Current, WAER Syracuse Public Media, and Meidas Touch political correspondent Scott MacFarlane — appearing to avoid the only of four local debates that would have allowed constituents to directly question candidates.

Mannion, a Democrat representing New York’s 22nd Congressional District, in August told a Central Current reporter he was looking forward to debate season and reminding voters of his voting record. 

A week later, he declined an invitation to the debate but accepted invitations to three other debates — none of which have announced plans to have live audiences. Mannion’s decision to avoid the debate will prevent the forum from occurring — as nonprofit organizations, Central Current and WAER are not permitted to host a one-candidate debate under the Federal Elections Commission regulations for nonprofits.

Mannion’s team cited a lack of capacity in their statement — though Mannion’s predecessor, Rep. Brandon Williams, managed two years ago to participate in four debates against Mannion.

“At this time, Congressman Mannion has committed to his full debate schedule. With his duties as a sitting elected official, unfortunately we cannot commit to any additional debates as his schedule will not allow it. Thank you for your understanding,” wrote Mannion campaign manager Josh Ludden in a statement to Central Current.

Republican Kailee Buller, who is challenging Mannion for the seat, called Mannion’s decision a “misstep” and said she thought Mannion was trying to avoid a live audience and Central Current’s debate format. Buller said she had looked forward to fielding questions from a live audience, and suggested Mannion was trying to shield himself from an unpredictable conversation.

“You’ve seen his temper over and over again. I mean, his most memorable moment was the one on the House floor dropping F-bombs in front of young students getting escorted off the House floor. He gets frazzled in those situations,” Buller said, referencing Mannion’s heated confrontation with NY-17 Rep. Mike Lawler. “And he has the ability, probably with some of these other outlets, to better understand how it’s going to go, and it’s more old school.”

An Auburn resident and former official in both of President Donald Trump’s administrations, Buller had already accepted the invite weeks before Mannion declined. Buller has spent the summer on a barnstorming tour of the district, which she said has brought her to the dinner tables and backyard barbecues of voters she has met on the campaign trail.

Central Current and its partner organizations on Aug. 21 invited Mannion to the debate, but the Mannion campaign responded by saying that it would not accept or deny debate invitations until after Labor Day. 

After that self-imposed timeline, the Mannion campaign did not directly decline the Central Current forum. Instead, the campaign issued a press release declaring the representative’s debate schedule, which featured three local debates. Central Current followed up with the campaign to obtain the direct answer the campaign had pledged to provide.

Ludden is a local political operative poised to become the new chair of the Onondaga County Democratic Committee. 

A reporter requested an interview with Ludden to ask why Mannion had declined the debate, which appears to be the only debate with a live audience of his constituents. Those constituents would have had the opportunity to pose questions, pre-screened by reporters, to their representative.

Ludden did not agree to an interview, instead providing a one-sentence statement.

“Congressman Mannion looks forward to sharing his record and platform in three publicly broadcasted debates and a number of open public forums with groups like the League of Women Voters, Centerstate CEO, and others,” Ludden wrote.

Central Current asked whether the decision to decline direct questioning from constituents reflects the values Ludden plans to bring to the helm of the local Democratic Party, which he is set to lead beginning Oct. 1. Ludden did provide a direct response to the question by the time of publication.

For NY-22’s residents, opportunities to directly question their representative have been few and far between since the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Local Democrats frequently criticized Williams for the sparsity and format of his town hall forums with constituents. The national Democratic committee chided Williams for not allowing voters to directly ask him questions. 

Mannion’s own town halls have drawn similar criticisms from political opponents and observers. Mannion’s town halls have typically occurred over telephone and only allowed for pre-vetted and approved questions from voters. 

Mannion in 2025 did hold an in-person town hall in Liverpool, and conducted in-person town hall events in Auburn and Syracuse in March, shortly after Buller announced her candidacy. Buller for weeks has criticized and lampooned Mannion on social media for not committing to debates, suggesting Mannion was “running away” from debating her.

Buller said that regardless of party affiliation, candidates should embrace direct conversations and hard questions from voters. Remote town halls and forums featuring campaign-approved questions are not true constituent engagement, Buller argued.

“That’s literally premeditated to try to make yourself look like you’re in the best light, and it’s not a real conversation,” Buller said. “… It wasn’t authentic when it was done back then, and it’s not authentic now.”

‘Get my record out there’

Before declining to participate in the debate, Mannion told a reporter he was “excited to debate and get my record out there.”

In a recent interview with Central Current, Mannion highlighted his support for a bipartisan housing reform package as one of the major successes of his first term. The representative has also secured funding for public housing redevelopment, mental health support in city schools, advanced manufacturing and semiconductor workforce training and police equipment for local law enforcement.

Mannion’s website features his recent votes and provides further information on his full voting record.

Prior to his term in Congress, Mannion often crossed party lines in the New York State Assembly and said in an interview with syracuse.com that he would bring that same approach to Washington. In Congress, Mannion has largely voted with Democrats, but has maintained a willingness to cross the aisle.

Despite frequent rhetorical opposition to President Donald Trump and the Republican Congressional leaders enacting Trump’s agenda, Mannion has multiple times broken ranks with his party to support significant Republican legislation.

In his first vote in Congress, Mannion joined 54 other Democrats to help Republicans enact the Laken Riley Act — legislation that set the table for the president’s mass deportation operations. 

In a February interview with Central Current, Mannion acknowledged that the Laken Riley Act was “very similar” to existing law, but said he supported the bill — which primed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to request, then receive, an $85 billion budget from Congress to go after “the worst of the worst” of undocumented immigrants — because he believed the law aligned with the wishes of his Central New York and Mohawk Valley constituents.

Mannion in 2025 also voted to express “gratitude” to ICE for “protecting the homeland” in a resolution nominally condemning antisemitism. Mannion broke with leading Jewish voices in the Democratic Party who called on their members to reject the Republican resolution that thanked ICE and instead support a near-identical resolution sponsored by Democrats that also condemned antisemitism but excluded gratitude for federal immigration agents. 

After federal immigration agents killed two American citizens in Minneapolis, Mannion called ICE “a personal paramilitary unit to the president,” but distanced himself from efforts within his party to abolish ICE. 

Mannion and Congressional Democrats blocked funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and agreed to fund the department on the condition that the department would implement significant reforms to ICE’s approach to its detention and deportation operations.

Chief among those reforms were body-worn cameras, which Democrats touted as a major win for transparency and accountability. Congress in April gave ICE $20 million to outfit agents with body-worn cameras. But after ICE in July spent $30.9 million for body-worn camera equipment from Axon Enterprise — a leading police technology manufacturer in whose stock the president invested $5 million in June — DHS appeared to renege, saying ICE would only release body-worn camera footage if it aligned with the agency’s “best interests.”

In August, Mannion and a majority of Democrats joined House Republicans to pass the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which surveillance experts and immigration advocates call a “Trojan horse” for ICE to expand its resources by granting the agency access to private surveillance systems in retail settings and instructing the agency to combat shoplifting.

Buller would also have supported the CORCA if she were in Congress, Buller said.

Buller has critiqued Mannion’s voting record on Israel, though Mannion has mainly issued pro-Israel votes in his first term. In a 2024 debate, Mannion passionately defended his support for Israel after Williams suggested Mannion didn’t adequately support the foreign nation after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. 

Mannion in July supported a doomed effort by an outspoken Israel critic, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, to withhold military aid to Israel. Afterward, local advocacy group End Antisemitism Now after the vote criticized Mannion’s vote. 

Mannion in September again broke ranks with his party, and leading Jewish members within it, to help Republicans enact the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act of 2026, which would block federal student aid to institutions that boycott Israel. Mannion was one of 33 Democrats to vote yes on the bill, which Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler — the longest-serving Jewish member in the House — opposed, calling it a “direct and gross violation of the First Amendment.”

The Working Families Party of Central New York, which endorsed Mannion, expressed disappointment with that vote, calling for unity within the Democratic Party and for Mannion to reconsider his position. 

Members of the Syracuse chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace, Syracuse Democratic Socialists of America, CNY WFP and the Syracuse Peace Council on Monday met with Mannion’s team to advocate for Mannion to sign onto supporting the Block the Bombs Act. That legislation would limit American military aid to Israel.

Those organizations have met with Mannion’s staff in person repeatedly to discuss the Block the Bombs Act — and one member asked Mannion about the bill in a recent “telephone town hall” — but Mannion has not appeared at any of the meetings despite repeated requests that he attend and engage with the assembled constituents, members said.

In a statement to Central Current, the Syracuse Peace Council expressed concern about Mannion’s decision not to participate in Central Current, WAER and MacFarlane’s would-be debate.

“We find it deeply troubling that Rep. Mannion declined to participate in a debate involving a live audience of his constituents, especially when it’s organized by the non-profit journalism sector,” Syracuse Peace Council organizer Andy Mager wrote.

Buller reiterated her belief that Mannion was shunning his voters and a new publication in favor of more predictable, traditional debate settings.

“I welcome anyone into the tent who wants to have a conversation,” Buller said. “He’s kind of shutting himself out and doesn’t think he has to talk to other people.”

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...