What "I Secured" Leaves Out: Langworthy's Shared and Out-of-District Earmarks
Companion entry: Where Langworthy’s Earmarks Go — and the One County They Miss.
Why this matters
Rep. Langworthy routinely posts that he personally “secured” or “delivered” federal dollars for the district. Earmarks are a legitimate part of the job, and some of his are genuinely his own work. But the appropriations record shows that his “I secured” framing leaves out three things: that his biggest projects are shared with the state’s two Democratic senators, that the senators requested them first, and that some of the money is for communities he doesn’t represent.
Statement
Source: Langworthy’s office, announcing the Erie County Sheriff earmark (2026)
“This funding represents a major victory for public safety in Western New York.”
His office secured and announced $4.2 million for the Sheriff’s aviation unit through a Community Project Funding request — an earmark with no Senate counterpart, so this one is genuinely his. The problem is that the same “I secured / delivered” framing is applied to projects that are not solely, or even primarily, his own.
The Facts
1. About half his earmark dollars are shared with the senators. Of his roughly $32 million in Community Project Funding, about $17.7M (54%) is on projects Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand also fund; about $14.9M (46%) is genuinely solo — led by the $4.2M sheriff’s helicopters. On the shared projects, all three offices announce the same dollars as their own.
2. On the shared projects, the senators were first — years before he took office. Langworthy’s earliest possible earmark cycle was FY2024 (he took office January 2023). The senators had already requested the same communities in FY2022. Their FY2022 figures below are requests; Langworthy’s are FY2024 enacted amounts — so read the table as “who was pursuing it first,” not a like-for-like size comparison:
| Shared project | Senators — FY2022 CDS request | Langworthy — FY2024 enacted |
|---|---|---|
| West Seneca water (NY-26) | $7,388,000 | $1,229,360 |
| Portville water | $5,250,000 | $1,250,000 |
| Mayville / N. Chautauqua Lake Sewer | $2,000,000 | $2,000,000 |
On the overlapping work he is the follow-on partner, not the originator. The senators also independently fund NY-23 projects he has no part in — including a $1M Chemung County wastewater project and roughly $3.1M across Tioga County, the two counties his own earmarks most neglect.
3. Some of what he claims is outside NY-23. Two of his enacted earmarks are for his home Western New York region but outside his district, in neighboring NY-26 (Rep. Tim Kennedy):
- Town of West Seneca — $1,229,360 (FY2024): a water district in NY-26.
- Buffalo Niagara International Airport — $1,482,000 (FY2026): the facility is in Cheektowaga, NY-26.
- FeedMore WNY — $3,000,000 is a borderline case: a regional food bank whose headquarters is in Buffalo (NY-26), though it serves NY-23 counties and its planned new site is in Hamburg (which straddles the NY-23/NY-26 line).
Context
None of this is improper. House members and senators routinely co-request the same projects — having all three delegation members file for a project helps it get funded, and it is normal for each to announce it. It is also not unusual for a member to support a regional institution (like a food bank) that serves his constituents even if its building sits across a district line.
The issue is one of framing, not legality: a large share of what Langworthy presents as “I secured” is shared with — and was often initiated by — the two Democratic senators whose party he campaigns against, and some is for people he does not represent. His genuinely solo record is real (~$14.9M, led by the sheriff’s helicopters); the missing context is everything the word “I” omits.
Questions This Raises
- When Langworthy says “I secured,” how much of the project’s funding did his office originate versus the senators who requested it first?
- Why does he request and claim earmarks for communities outside NY-23 (West Seneca and the Buffalo airport, both in NY-26)?
- Does his messaging acknowledge the bipartisan, House-and-Senate nature of the projects he most prominently claims?
Sources
- House CPF (Langworthy): FY2024 enacted subcommittee tables + his FY24–26 disclosures
- Senate CDS (Schumer/Gillibrand): FY2022 CDS requests (West Seneca $7,388,000; Portville $5.25M; Mayville $2M — all confirmed on the primary FY2022 disclosure); FY2023 Southern Tier $8.5M (Chemung wastewater $1M; Tioga: Racker $750K + Upper Susquehanna $1.58M); FY2026 WNY $9.275M
- Shared-vs-solo split (≈$17.7M shared / ≈$14.9M solo of ≈$32M): a tally cross-referencing the House CPF tables above against these Senate CDS releases (working ledger on file).
- District boundaries: West Seneca and Cheektowaga (Buffalo airport) are in NY-26 (Rep. Tim Kennedy). Note: NY-23 includes parts of Niagara County (e.g., Pendleton), so a Niagara-County location is not by itself out-of-district.
- “I secured” quote: Rep. Langworthy Facebook post (Erie County Sheriff helicopters) — permalink + archive to be captured.
Note: Co-requesting earmarks across the House and Senate is a legal, standard part of the appropriations process. This entry addresses how the resulting funding is described, not whether securing it was proper. Last updated: July 9, 2026.