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SARANAC LAKE - There are 181 towns and six cities in New York's 23rd Congressional District. Matt Doheny says he will visit each of them every year if he's elected to Congress.

That might sound easy, but a good deal of a congressman's time has to be spent in Washington, which reduces the amount of time he could spend traveling.

In an interview with the Enterprise Wednesday, Doheny said being an effective representative for all the areas of a diverse district that spans 11 counties will be one of the biggest challenges he would face if elected. He said he has the energy, though, and would work to promote the district's interests in Washington.

"I do this seven days a week, 16 hours a day. ... You've got to get in the car and go out and meet as many people as possible," Doheny said.

Doheny, an Alexandria Bay native who lives in Watertown now and works as an investor, will be running in a Republican primary with businessman and accountant Doug Hoffman of Saranac Lake. Hoffman has the support of the Conservative Party, Doheny of the Independence Party. The incumbent is Bill Owens, D-Plattsburgh, who is running for re-election.

In a television advertisement that started to air recently, Doheny said he favors cutting congressional pay in half and cutting their health benefits and pensions. He said Wednesday he favors a return to the "citizen legislature" that, he said, the Founding Fathers envisioned, and said serving in Congress should be more like being a local county legislator than the career it often is now, with legislators compensated but not so much that it is viewed as a better career than the private sector.

Doheny said health benefits and pensions for legislators should reflect those that private-sector employees have. He has previously said he favors term limits, for congressional staff as well as for legislators.

Doheny also said he favors allowing bills to age three days before they are voted on, to give legislators a chance to read them, as well as reforms to allow up-or-down votes on different aspects of a bill. Unrelated measures are often lumped together in a single bill now, which Doheny said puts legislators in the position of having to decide how to vote on a bill where they support some provisions but oppose other, unconnected ones.

Doheny said he opposes the Disclose Act, a campaign finance law which stalled in the Senate Tuesday due to a GOP filibuster. He said he favors some restrictions on campaign spending, but that the proposed law would "channel money to Democrats and Democratic incumbents."

The act was proposed after a January Supreme Court decision saying unions and corporations should be treated like individuals in terms of restrictions on campaign spending, which made many previous restrictions unconstitutional. The law would have required corporations and unions to reveal how much they spent on broadcast advertising in federal elections and required CEOs or union heads to appear at the end of an ad and take responsibility for its content, as well as banning political spending by companies with big government contracts or substantial foreign ownership. It passed the House of Representatives in June, with local Rep. Scott Murphy, D-Glens Falls, voting in favor and Owens voting against.

Doheny argued time, such as volunteer work, is worth money but isn't counted as such, while corporate spending is more restricted.

"There's definitely an inequality," Doheny said.

He also said he opposes public financing of campaigns.

Doheny, like many people running for office this year, has made cutting government spending part of his platform. However, he said law enforcement, national defense and infrastructure are the core functions the government should spend money on, citing broadband Internet and cell phone service as the two major unmet infrastructure needs of the Adirondack Park. Cell phone reception is poor or nonexistent in many areas of the North Country; this was one of the issues Doheny discussed with the Hamilton County Republican Committee last month, which ended up endorsing him. Doheny said Wednesday he considers it both important for economic development and a safety issue.

The issue of building cell phone towers in the Adirondack Park has been between the state Adirondack Park Agency and cell phone companies, with the federal government playing no direct role, but Doheny said he would push for it in Congress.

"We can find a way," Doheny said. "That's why you have elected officials at the federal level."

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Contact Nathan Brown at 891-2600 ext. 26 or nbrown@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.