Less than 1,000 feet from his former high school in Endicott, Rep. Josh Riley was ceremonially sworn into office Saturday, capping off a path to Congress that saw him lose in 2022 but win a highly contested rematch last November.

Alongside his children, wife and around 150 supporters, Riley sought to emphasize his humble origins and community roots. He was sworn in by his former teacher, Lynda DeLuca, and introduced by Broome County Executive Jason Garnar.

“I remember looking around my neighborhood on Birdsall Street, and I realized I didn’t know too many people who wore a tie to work,” Riley said. “I didn’t know anybody in the neighborhood who had a law degree. I didn’t know anyone who sat at the table in those corridors of power where all those big decisions were being made.”

“But I had read the papers, and I saw that the folks who were shipping the jobs overseas just to make an extra buck — they had armies of lawyers and lobbyists, and I had asked myself: ‘Why is it that all these big, powerful special interests get an advocate fighting for them when my community’s getting ignored and left behind,’” Riley added.

He described his first 50 days in office, starting with his assignments to the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Space, Science, and Technology. Calling attention to these two areas, Riley was introduced by Mike McMahon, the “mad as hell” farmer featured in one of his campaign advertisements, and Shawn Atkinson, the director of operations at BAE Systems.

Earlier this month, Riley introduced his first bill alongside a bipartisan group of lawmakers to strengthen and expand the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program, an effort he says will help the average family save around $400 per year on their utility bills.

Riley said he had formally supported 18 bills in his first months in office, 16 of which were bipartisan. Of the two that were not, he said, “I always said that if the president of the United States from either party was doing right by upstate New York, then I’m gonna work with him, and if he’s hurting upstate New York, then I’m going to oppose him.”

“And I believe that Elon Musk’s DOGE is hurting upstate New York,” Riley said, using an acronym for the Department of Government Efficiency, a cost-cutting initiative that is not a real department because it has not been authorized by Congress. “This guy is out here cutting NIH funding and funding for research we’re doing at Cornell and at Binghamton and across upstate New York.”

He said he supported legislation written by Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan to bar DOGE representatives from accessing sensitive payment systems unless they have security clearances and are free of conflicts of interest.

“You have a very, very important responsibility, and you are in a very, very important time in our nation’s history, and I’m glad you’re representing the people of the 19th Congressional District,” Garnar, the county executive, said.

Riley defeated Marc Molinaro, a Republican, by just over two percentage points to represent the 19th Congressional District, which includes Binghamton and Ithaca, in an election that saw nearly $45 million in spending.

The race was heated and personal, and Riley won with a strong showing in Ithaca’s Tompkins County, and Columbia and Ulster counties provided votes that offset Molinaro’s decisive victories in central New York. The two fought to a near-draw in Broome County.

“I didn’t go there and push Democratic priorities, and I didn’t go to Congress to push Republican priorities,” Riley said. “I went to Congress to push upstate New York’s priorities.”