By Dan Murphy
With the confusing NY primaries behind us, (one in June one in August), political watchers are wondering if voter discontent over inflation, crime, and college student loan bailouts will result in a ‘Red Wave,’ and will that Red Wave include Westchester?
The biggest election in our area that will provide you with that answer is the race for Congress in the 17th District, between incumbent Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, and Republican Assemblyman Mike Lawler. Both Maloney and Lawler easily won their primaries.
The district includes Northern Westchester, Putnam and Rockland Counties. Maloney has represented Northern Westchester and Putnam for most of his 10 years in the House, but is not known in Rockland, where Lawler lives and represents the county in the Assembly.
This election will be closely watched, and invested in by both parties, and could help tip the balance to a republican House majority. Maloney also serves as the Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, DCCC, which makes his re-election important to democrats, but his defeat a big feather in the cap of republicans.
Lawler has not waited to go on the offensive by claiming that Hudson Valley families can’t afford to pay for Maloney’s representation, which included votes to raise taxes, and his support of congestion pricing and the student loan bailout. “Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney insists on making life even more expensive for working- and middle-class New Yorkers already struggling to get by in a state with some of the highest taxes and inflation in America.
“Within just the past few weeks alone, Mr. Maloney has supported a trifecta of new taxes and fees on Hudson Valley families — a middle-class tax increase as part of the misnamed ‘Inflation Reduction Act’; a $9-$23 daily congestion pricing tax on commuters driving into Manhattan south of 60th Street, and a $10,000 student loan giveaway that will force middle-and working-class families to bear the cost of loans taken out by strangers earning up to $125,000 per year. That pass along will be especially galling to hard working trade professionals who couldn’t afford college for themselves, but now have to help pay for other people’s higher education.
“Millionaire Maloney is a classic tax-spend-and-borrow extremist who genuinely believes he can spend our money better than we can. He has no sense whatsoever what living in New York is like.He also broke his promise to reverse the State and Local Tax (SALT) Deduction Cap that hiked taxes on tens of thousands of middle-class Hudson Valley families, despite his Democrat colleagues controlling all three branches of the federal government for the past two years.
“I adamantly oppose President Biden’s naked, $10,000 bribe of students; I’ll stop congestion pricing dead in its tracks if I’m elected, and I’ll give Hudson Valley families real tax relief, which will include the reversal of SALT. They are desperate for some real economic relief,” said Lawler, who last month, said Maloney is full of baloney regarding his support for the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act.”
“House Democrats passed the so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ – a bill that will do nothing to combat inflation and instead raises taxes in the middle of a recession,” said Lawler. “Not only that, but it fails to address the disastrous SALT situation for Hudson Valley residents, unleashes a tsunami of IRS auditors on working and middle-class families, imposes new fees that will result in higher energy costs, and causes our GDP to shrink over the course of the next decade.”
“The Inflation Reduction Act and Sean Patrick Maloney are both full of baloney and bad for the taxpayers of New York,” continued Lawler. “At least voters can replace one of them at the ballot box this November.”
RealClearPolitics rates NY-17 as a “Toss-Up” in November’s General Election, and Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy said, “Assemblyman Mike Lawler is a smart, energetic leader who works day and night to make New York safer and more affordable for his constituents. He has not only earned my personal support in this race, but he’s also been designated as ‘On the Radar’ by the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) ‘Young Guns’ program. Make no mistake about it: Mike Lawler will win in November and help us take back the majority.”
Lawler also criticized Maloney in his role as DCCC Chair to attempt to nominate far right republicans in their primary races across the country. “New Yorkers are trying to put food on the table, and Sean Patrick Maloney is running around the country playing political games,” Assemblyman Lawler said. “Families I speak with in the Hudson Valley want relief — from crime, taxes, and rising food and gas prices — and Mr. Maloney doesn’t seem to care about their needs at all. For him, it’s all about reelecting Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, Joe Biden as President in 2024, and himself as DCCC chairman.
“New Yorkers deserve representatives who show up for work, not a celebrity congressman When we needed public safety, he gave us cashless bail. When we needed tax relief, he raised taxes. When inflation began eating up household budgets, Maloney, Pelosi, and Biden raised middle class taxes and spent hundreds of billions more, guaranteeing higher inflation.”
“I actually talk to my neighbors, and more importantly, I listen to them: Here’s what they say: Prices at the pump and at the supermarket are killing us; We need the SALT tax reversed; cashless bail overturned, and police budgets re-funded; We need solutions in Washington, not endless partisanship and progressive madness, and We want our children educated, not brainwashed,” said Lawler, who lives in Pearl River.
Westchester republicans also nominated Miriam Levitt Flisser, the former Mayor of Scarsdale, to run in the 16th Congressional District against Rep. Jamaal Bowman. While some in Westchester claim that this race might be closer than some think, we will take a look at Flisser’s campaign in the upcoming weeks to see if it is real.
The other race that many republicans in Westchester point to is the race for Assembly in the 90th District, in Yonkers. Democratic Assemblyman Nader Sayegh is being challenged by Yonkers City Councilman Mike Breen. The race is being called “the battle of the nice guys” because of both men’s friendly demeanor, but a Yonkers republican told us, “it could go negative quickly, and if the red wave ever extends into Westchester, look out.”
