News · Press Release

WHAT THEY’RE READING: Time and Again, New York Republicans Prove They’re Out of Touch

Have you been reading up on the news this week? If you haven’t, here’s a brief recap: New York Republicans are deeply out of touch with their districts, and New Yorkers are taking note. 

Whether it’s LaLota, D’Esposito, Santos, Lawler, Molinaro or Williams, their extreme actions are speaking louder than their phony words. New York Republicans can’t posture themselves as common-sense moderates while voting in line with the most extreme House members.

See below what New Yorkers are reading on these vulnerable Republicans: 

New York Post: Vulnerable NY GOP nervous about House speaker Mike Johnson’s fundraising ability

  • Vulnerable upstate and Long Island House Republicans are nervous about new Speaker Mike Johnson’s fundraising chops as they prepare for an onslaught of Democratic cash to oust them from power.

  • While McCarthy has been a fundraising powerhouse, drawing on decades of connections from a vast network of GOP donors, Johnson does not have anywhere near a comparable apparatus — a critical issue as 2024 House races loom.

  • “This was one of the first concerns brought to me,” said a top staffer to one embattled New York House Republican. “McCarthy was the LeBron James of fundraising and Mike Johnson really isn’t and so how is it that you can square this circle?”

  • “They are extremely concerned that they will not be as well financed this cycle,” another Top GOP Hill insider said of Empire State Republicans.

The Island 360: D’Esposito, GOP colleagues reveal who they are

  • We did only give two cheers – not three – to Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (NY-03) [sic] and two other Republican Long Island representatives who voted three times against hard-right bomb thrower Rep. Jim Jordan for speaker of the House.

  • As we noted, Jordan had passed zero legislation since taking office, had been called a “legislative terrorist” by former Republican House Speaker John Boehner and supported former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

  • But in hindsight, we were too generous in giving D’Esposito as well as fellow Long Island Congressmen Nick LaLota and Andrew Gabarino credit for their votes against Jordan.

  • Still, it is surprising that D’Esposito, LaLota and Gabarino, whom some had called moderates, joined the rest of the Republican caucus in a unanimous vote to make far-right Rep. Mike Johnson (LA-04) speaker of the House.

  • Perhaps the three congressmen wanted to end the three weeks of paralysis in the House while Republicans decided on a new speaker. Perhaps they are the “squishes” that far-right House members said they were and folded under pressure. Or perhaps they support Johnson’s policies.

  • As they say, actions speak louder than words.

  • After his vote, D’Esposito co-sponsored legislation presented by Johnson for $14.3 billion in aid to Israel that his press release hailed as supporting our ally in the midst of its war with Hamas.

  • This is untrue for several reasons.

  • The $14.3 billion was the first emergency aid package ever to include a spending offset. Ever. And the offset, made in the name of curbing “runaway spending,” was a $14.3 billion cut in money for IRS examiners, which it turns out was no offset at all.

  • The Congressional Budget Office said the resulting reduction in IRS examiners would cost the federal government $28 billion in money lost to people not paying what they owed in taxes.

  • In other words, D’Esposito and his fellow Republicans were leveraging aid to Israel to help billionaire tax cheats.

  • The other problem with this legislation is that it has no chance in the U.S. Senate.

  • The political grandstanding by House Republicans delays this critical aid to Israel and threatens our continued support of Ukraine at a time when both countries are at war.

  • The New York Republicans, almost all of whom are considered politically vulnerable in 2024, were not done with their political grandstanding.

  • On another front, D’Esposito introduced a privileged resolution – co-sponsored by LaLota and three Upstate Republican congressmen Marc Molinaro, Brandon Williams, and Mike Lawler – to expel beleaguered Republican Rep. George Santos, who represents northern Nassau County and a portion of northeast Queens.

  • D’Esposito did not explain why he introduced the resolution at this time when he voted in May against a similar bill proposed by Democrats.

  • D’Esposito has also yet to explain why he and his fellow Republican representatives are not holding former President Donald Trump to something even close to the standard for Santos.

  • We will hazard a guess. Political survival.

  • Trump remains popular with the Republican base. Santos is very unpopular with everyone in New York, Republicans as well as Democrats.

  • What people can stop wondering about is whether D’Esposito and his fellow New York Republicans are willing to side with the far-right extreme in the House Republican caucus. If not share their views.

The Examiner News: Lawler Cannot Be Re-elected After Supporting Johnson as Speaker

  • In voting to elevate Mike Johnson to House speaker, Mike Lawler voted to endanger our democracy.

  • After the 2020 election, Johnson created a legal theory to justify Trump’s objection to the results and worked to build support for a Texas lawsuit aimed at overturning the will of the people in four states that Biden lawfully won. As speaker of the House, Johnson will have much more power during the next election than he did the last time Trump lost, and that should scare us all.

  • But it didn’t scare Mike Lawler, who was also able to look past Johnson’s stated desire to slash Medicare and Social Security, restrict the rights of women and outlaw gay marriage in order to vote for him.

  • Part of the problem with the current Republican Party is that it is chock full of guys like this; it’s not clear who they could have chosen who wouldn’t have the exact same problems that Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson have. Now that the House is back in business, we will see more nonsense distraction bills and more cuts to programs Americans need because that’s all Republicans do at this point.

  • This is why we cannot elect a Republican congressman ever again. Even if Mike Lawler were a moderate (he’s not; look at what he just voted to do), there are not enough GOP moderates left for a Republican majority to do anything but press an extreme right-wing agenda. Lawler cannot be re-elected next year.

The Post-Standard: Brandon Williams’ speaker votes endanger American democracy

  • Rep. Brandon Williams has put the survival of American democracy at risk through his votes for House speaker. He also has increased the chances of a government shutdown because of growing democratic dysfunction in Congress.

  • Williams supported for House speaker two leaders of the movement to reverse the results of the 2020 election, Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson.

  • Jordan was too much of a bomb thrower for many Republicans in the House, who resented the authoritarian tactic of rule through intimidation. But Jordan’s use of fascist tactics did not cause him to lose Williams’ support.

  • Johnson, who took the gavel, lobs his bombs more quietly, but he was a key leader of the effort to reject the 2020 election results. He spearheaded support for some of Donald Trump’s litigation seeking to overturn the election.

  • If Trump loses the 2024 election, he will again claim that he won. We know this because he not only denied the results of the 2020 election, he denied the results of the 2016, election, which he won, claiming falsely that he won not just the Electoral College (which he did) but also the popular vote (which he did not).

  • Williams’ vote for Johnson was also a vote against democracy prevailing in the House of Representatives right now. For democracy to work, legislators have to compromise and pass budgets (and other legislation) that reflect the center within the Congress (as the Senate has done). But Johnson, Jordan and Williams in practice do not support that principle. Instead, they support government by blackmail. 

  • Faced with political controversy about regarding the budget, they simply insist that everybody follow their extreme agenda, which treats subsidies for oil companies, some of the wealthiest corporations in America, as sacrosanct, while slashing the social safety net.

  • The Senate has passed a bipartisan budget. The House could too, but can’t because of the likes of Williams, Jordan and Johnson. 

  • Consistent with the far right’s love affair with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Johnson has stripped funding for Ukraine out of the most recent funding bill. And he has refused to defend Israel, unless everybody caves in to his demand to gut tax enforcement against the rich. Williams, therefore, is complicit in putting aid to our allies at risk by supporting a speaker who sees essential national defense expenditures as weapons to be used to aid rich tax cheats.

  • But the citizens of Syracuse have an unusual opportunity to aid our democracy by rescuing it from those who demand minority rule and refuse to accept election results. Johnson won’t be speaker of the House when Trump seeks to overturn the results of the 2024 election (assuming he loses) if Republicans lose control of the House in the 2024 election. And Syracuse citizens can vote for a Democrat to preserve American democracy.

  • For Republicans, the choice between voting for the end of American democracy by supporting Brandon Williams or having to support a Democrat, whose policies they oppose may prove difficult. But successful democracies around the world provide good lives for their citizens whether they follow a small government or a big government policy. Without democracy, however, leaders can destroy freedom and make life miserable for everybody.

  • Syracuse citizens must vote in large numbers for democracy in the 2024 election so we can go on freely fighting and resolving policy battles through elections and compromise in the future. Sadly, that simple requirement precludes voting for Brandon Williams.

The Rome Sentinel: Williams represents his billionaire donors, not the residents of NY-22

  • Do you receive Social Security and Medicare? I do — and that is why I was concerned to see our congressman, Rep. Brandon Williams, has gone further toward the MAGA crowd.

  • He has hired new staff that worked for the extremist right that supported the insurrection on January 6th.

  • After voting three times for Trump’s combative ally Rep. Jim Jordon for House Speaker, he voted for Rep. Mike Johnson, an election denier and architect of the insurrection’s fake elector scheme.

  • Williams fails to represent senior citizens, women’s rights or public schools.

  • I often wonder if he is representing the district he lives in as he certainly doesn’t represent NY-District 22 where his constituents live. He won’t even schedule a meeting with the local Alliance for Retired Americans!

  • We need a representative that works for us not his billionaire donors. Elections have consequences — that is why I will always vote for local, state and federal representatives that truly care about and represent average citizens.

  • Join me in not reelecting our unrepresentative Brandon Williams.

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