Elise Stefanik Escapes Protests and Bad Press Back Home
It’s been a long summer for the Congresswoman.
Elise Stefanik is heading back to Washington with a dark cloud of negative local press and constituent protests on her heels.
From protests to a flurry of bad editorials, the past few months were pretty rough.
Stefanik’s hometown paper and other North Country news outlets were quite critical, calling her out for her lack of focus and her refusal to host even ONE town hall this summer to hear directly from constituents. One paper even reported that Elise has the worst record on town halls of all Upstate Republicans this year.
The North Country Republican was also criticized for attacking her opponents, name calling, and dodging the press.
Yikes!
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WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING:
Stefanik sidesteps potential fallout from Alabama abortion law
Times Union | May 17, 2019
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But events such as Alabama’s enactment of what amounts to a near-total ban on abortion may undercut Stefanik’s goal of adding female candidates for House races.
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Republicans already have problems attracting suburban college-educated women, whose votes helped Democrats take back the House after the 2018 election, ending eight years of GOP rule. Although the next national election is 18 months away, the ripples from the Alabama law — and less draconian abortion restrictions in other states — could overwhelm Republicans in terms of women voters and candidate recruitment.
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Stefanik declined to be interviewed for this story.
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Stefanik declines newspaper interview
Post-Star Editorial Board | May 21, 2019
Boos to Rep. Elise Stefanik for continuing to dodge questions from the media.
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In this case, an Albany Times-Union reporter tried to speak to Rep. Stefanik about her efforts to recruit women to run for Congress, and if those efforts might be hindered because of the recent anti-abortion laws passed by several states.
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Since many of her constituents continue to read newspapers — in print and online — when she declines to talk to a newspaper, she is declining to talk to her constituents.
EDITORIAL: Stefanik votes against enforcing rule of law
Post-Star Editorial Board | June 15, 2019
Earlier this week, Rep. Elise Stefanik voted against enforcing the rule of law.
We’re aghast that the political divide in this country has led to a place where politicians believe they can pick and choose which laws they obey and which they do not.
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We consider it our job to hold elected officials accountable for their votes and positions and acknowledge these are unusually political times. It is not personal and it is not partisan.
The legislation voted on by the House of Representatives this week empowered the House to begin legal proceedings to force Barr and McGahn to obey the subpoenas and appear before the House and give testimony.
To comply with the rule of law.
That seems straightforward and important to us.
Rep. Stefanik voted against that. So did 190 of her Republican colleagues.
We hoped to understand why, because it sure looked like they were just protecting members of their own party.
[…]
The laws of our country are supposed to supersede political motivations and we fear that Rep. Stefanik and her colleagues did not rise above politics in this instance.
Post-Star reporter Michael Goot emailed her representative for a statement to explain her vote.
He heard nothing, so he asked a second time.
He heard nothing again.
Post-Star Editor Ken Tingley reached out to her representative on Friday morning, pointing out that Rep. Stefanik had ignored any explanation of why she voted against rule of law in previous correspondence.
Editorial: Talk does nothing to ease border crisis
Post-Star Editorial Board | June 27, 2019
When children who have been separated from their parents and guardians are crammed into buildings where they sleep on cement floors under lights that never get shut off, you are missing the point when you argue about what to call those buildings.
That is what Elise Stefanik did last week, when she criticized another New York congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for calling these facilities “concentration camps.”
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Her viewpoint is upside-down. The inexcusable thing is the neglect and abuse of children, happening now at the southern border. Yes, as Stefanik said, “root causes” of the crisis need to be addressed — but first, make sure no more children are abused.
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It’s absurd and infuriating to hear Stefanik and other Republican politicians harping on a single phrase uttered by a single Democratic congresswoman, while children are dying. It’s as if they are desperate for a distraction.
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The crisis is not what we call camps where children are held in inhumane conditions. The crisis is that these camps exist.
Climate Activist Bill McKibben Arrested Protesting Trump’s Immigration Policies
Rolling Stone | August 9, 2019
Bill McKibben is no stranger to getting arrested for protesting. Usually it’s when he’s protesting fossil fuel companies in response climate change, but on Thursday, the climate activist was arrested along with six others who refused to leave Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) Glen Falls office in a protest of President Trump’s immigration policies.
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McKibben was one of the first to publicize the dangers of climate change 30 years ago in his 1989 book, The End of Nature, that is often touted as the first book on global warming written for a general audience. He is also president and co-founder of 350.org, an organization and movement that pushes for the end of dependence on fossil fuels and a transition to community-led renewable energy. (He has also been a Rolling Stone contributor.)
Stefanik called the protesters “socialists” in a tweeted statement. McKibben said on Twitter that he was released from jail after “a few hours” and was charged with criminal trespass.
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Protesting Immigration Policy, and Why I Decided to Get Arrested
The New Yorker | By Bill McKibben | August 9, 2019
Toward the end of this hideous week of gun massacres and Presidential tantrums, I found myself manacled at the ankle to a bench in a holding cell in the basement of a police station in the upstate New York city of Glens Falls, wondering if it was a useful place to be.
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And then we walked three or four blocks through the center of town, chanting, “No More Hate!,” until we were outside the office of Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican, who represents New York’s Twenty-first Congressional District. When we arrived, a crowd perhaps a third the size of our group was already in place, carrying Trump banners and chanting their own slogans: “Americans before illegals,” “Build the wall,” and “Four more years.”
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Six of us, however, went back to the Stefanik’s office and sat in the reception area, telling the pleasant receptionist that we were planning to stay until we could talk to the congresswoman—over the phone, or via Skype, or some such. She said she was phoning Washington, and then told us that Stefanik was unavailable, and then announced that the office was closed, and then that she was summoning the police, which was more or less what we’d guessed would happen.
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NY21: Stefanik escalates war of words with protesters, Glens Falls Post-Star
NCPR | August 12, 2019
North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican, is escalating her war of words with the Glens Falls Post-Star, one of the region’s major daily newspapers.
In a post on her campaign Facebook page – not her official congressional site – Stefanik and her staff accused the Post-Star of censorship, a claim which appears to be factually untrue. She also continued to portray activists who protested outside her Glens Falls office last Thursday as “socialists” linked to her Democratic opponent’s campaign, which is also inaccurate.
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Stefanik’s attacks
NCPR reached out to Stefanik and her team for comment, but they declined to respond or correct the record, instead sending a brief email again attacking Cobb.
Stefanik has portrayed herself as a bipartisan centrist devoted to advancing policy ideas and broadening the appeal of her Republican Party.
The tone of her 2020 campaign marks a significant shift from earlier political fights waged by the congresswoman, which were much more focused on issues, especially this early in the race.
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Use of campaign name-calling
Beginning in 2018, Stefanik has also frequently declined to use Cobb’s full name in campaign ads and statements, instead referring to her as “Taxin Tedra,” even after journalists debunked the attack.
Using labels or epithets rather than proper names is an uncommon practice in North Country politics, one Stefanik didn’t embrace in prior campaigns against Democratic opponents Aaron Woolf and Mike Derrick.
The Stefanik campaign declined to answer NCPR’s question about why they choose to refer to Cobb in this fashion.
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EDITORIAL: Stefanik comes up short on town hall meetings
The Post-Star | August 19, 2019
Rep. Antonio Delgado is the 42-year-old first-term congressman from Schenectady.
On Wednesday, he announced he will be holding his 22nd town hall meeting since taking office in January.
We are impressed.
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Each summer, the House of Representatives sets aside time on its official calendar to allow members of Congress “District Work Period Time.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik has not taken advantage of that time this summer. She has not had a town hall meeting locally since returning for the summer break.
The Post-Star asked Rep. Stefanik’s communications director where and when her town halls would be this August, but we did not get a response.
We reached out to the editors of newspapers in Watertown, Saranac Lake and Plattsburgh to see if they knew of any town hall meetings scheduled in their communities.
They did not.
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But we have not seen any action from Rep. Stefanik.
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As far as we know, Rep. Stefanik has not had a town hall local since a May meeting in Schuylerville.
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These are perilous times for our country.
People are worried.
People are protesting outside her office.
She needs to be front and center with the voters.
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Rep. Stefanik has had her vacation.
It’s time to get back to work.
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