| Vulnerable Republican Mike Lawler is getting called out by his own constituents for wasting time on desperate publicity stunts and cable TV pundit auditions instead of doing his actual job and working to find a solution that reopens the government.
This week, community members gathered in Mike Lawler’s backyard to demand that he “stop playing political games, reopen the government, and get to work lowering costs for his New York constituents.”
The protestors put Lawler on blast for his support of Trump’s Big, Ugly Law – which is expected to threaten critical food assistance for the 66,000 people in NY-17 that rely on SNAP to put food on the table each day, and threaten the food security of 3.5 million New Yorkers across the state.
“The onus is on our elected officials in Congress, like Representative Mike Lawler, to negotiate in good faith and with urgency” to reopen the government and undo these devastating cuts, they said.
Read the coverage for yourself:
The Hudson Independent: Group Protests Federal Cuts In Food Aid
- Empire State Voices (ESV), a progressive group “dedicated to amplifying the voices of everyday working New Yorkers,” held a press conference outside Tarrytown Community Opportunity Center, demanding that Congressman Mike Lawler “stop playing political games, reopen the government, and get to work lowering costs for his New York constituents.”
- With food assistance programs like SNAP and WIC under attack, local residents spoke on the growing threat of food insecurity in the Hudson Valley. WIC, a program that supplies healthy food and formula for pregnant women, new mothers, and their young children, supports more than 430,000 New Yorkers every month.
- If the government is not reopened, ESV says the program could run out of money as soon as this week. ESV donated $1,000 worth of food to the Community Opportunity Center
- Cuts resulting from the recently passed Tax Law are expected to force around 860,000 New Yorkers off their health insurance and threaten the food security of 3.5 million New Yorkers, the group charges.
- “The onus is on our elected officials in Congress, like Representative Mike Lawler, to negotiate in good faith and with urgency so that working families and expectant mothers and young children needn’t live with one more day of uncertainty about where their next meal will come from,” said Tarrytown Trustee Kenny Herzog. “I refuse to stay silent while residents of my village here in Tarrytown buckle under the weight of escalating cost of living, stagnant wages, cavalier stripping of humane entitlements, and the indignity of being treated like political pawns.”
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