By Dan Murphy
We are now less than 30 days away from a Democratic congressional primary in Westchester that will likely determine who will represent a majority of the county for the next two years in Washington. A reminder to eligible Democratic voters in Westchester: The primaries for federal elections to Congress (House and Senate) are now held in June and not in September.
Congressman Eliot Engel, completing his 30th year and 15th term in the House of Representatives, is running for re-election in the 16th District, which includes two-thirds of Westchester County, including Yonkers, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Larchmont, Mamaroneck, Scarsdale, Eastchester, Pelham, Rye City, Hastings, Ardsley and Edgemont.
Two years ago, Engel faced a Democratic challenger in Mount Vernon community activist and entrepreneur Derickson Lawrence, who was knocked off the ballot for insufficient signatures but ran as an Independent candidate and got 5 percent of the vote.
This year Engel faces a challenge from Lawrence, running again and with enough signatures to be in the Democratic primary, and from first-time candidate and Scarsdale entrepreneur Jonathan Lewis.
This contest comes down to a referendum on Engel, and his core beliefs that he has expressed on the floors of Congress for four decades. Is the Westchester Democrat sitting in the middle of a recent blue wave of progressive, indivisible, anti-Trumpism, happy with Engel’s representation?
Both Lawrence and Lewis have been taking the local media tour to get out their message and to try and “out-Progressive” Engel – or get farther to the left than Engel. Lawrence recently proposed legalizing marijuana, meeting with California Sen. Kamala Harris, who has also called for the legalization of pot.
“We need to reform the cash bail system,” said Harris, who has introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to that effect.
Lawrence strongly supports the Senator’s position. “Too many young black and brown Americans spend anywhere from three to 18 months in prison for low level offenses, not because they are guilty, but because their bank accounts are empty,” he said. “We have a problem with mass incarceration in our country, we need to decriminalize marijuana.”
Separately, the devastation of opioid abuse in our society makes clear the point that drugs and addiction are a public health concern. “We need to innovate around treatment options at lower cost to society,” said Lawrence, who pointed to Engel’s support of the Crime Bill in 1994, 24 years ago. “Incumbent Elliot Engel voted for the 1994 Crime Bill – three strikes you’re out, and mandatory minimum sentences, which contributed to the explosive growth of mass incarceration in the 90s and the for-profit prison systems,” stated Lawrence. “A generation of broken families is still feeling the effects in our local community. Let’s hold Engel accountable.”
Lewis, who has loaned his campaign a sizeable portion of his personal wealth, has tried to tie Engel to the “Big Money, Big Pharma,” quid pro quo arrangements between lobbyists and members of Congress in Washington.
“It’s just the latest example of a Washington that’s literally drenched in special-interest money,” said Lewis. “When Big Pharma pays off elected influencers like my opponent Eliot Engel, and would-be influencers like Michael Cohen, it helps these Pharma bandits get away with unchecked bad behavior – like raising drug prices beyond many people’s ability to pay. It’s simply a crime.”
Lewis supports term limits for what he calls “career politicians like Engel,” has vowed not to take any donations from political action committees, and has called for more affordable health insurance and medicine, even if that means a single-payer system whereby xxxx xxxxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxxxx.
Both Lewis and Lawrence have also attempt to tie Engel, who serves as the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee and has spent many years in Congress discussing and traveling the globe supporting Democracy, to the unpopular wars our nation has recently fought.
Both Lawrence and Lewis have said that Engel is too much of an interventionist to represent the progressive ideals of Westchester and the district for another two years.
Engel’s progressive bonafides are evident in his effort over the past two years to support the Dodd-Frank financial regulations (saying, “The American people literally cannot afford this GOP majority in Congress. The banking industry needs more scrutiny, not less”); protecting Net Neutrality (“A free and open internet is essential to modern democracy and thus must be protected under any circumstance”); and supporting a plan to lower prescription drug prices, (“Rising prescription drug prices are a key concern of millions of American seniors and working families. And back in October, when I and other Energy and Commerce Democrats voted in favor of allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices – something the president once claimed to support – the GOP voted it down. That proposal was, unsurprisingly, absent from President Trump’s speech today, another in a long list of broken promises”).
Engel remains one of the highest-ranking liberal-progressive members of Congress.
Engel has also been willing to speak out against President Donald Trump and support the investigation into possible Russian intervention in the election of 2016. “Mr. Mueller is racking up convictions and indictments, and all indications suggest there are more to come,” he said. “President Trump and his Republican allies must not interfere or take any steps to obstruct justice in any way. Frankly, it’s past time for Congress to pass legislation guaranteeing that the special counsel can do his job free from political interference.”
With a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, Engel serves as a member of the Democratic minority, as would Lawrence or Lewis. If Democrats retake the House this November, then Engel, Lewis or Lawrence would serve in the majority.
The question that Westchester Democrats need to ask is: Who do I want representing my interests for the next two years? Are they satisfied with Engel or do they want more from Lawrence or Lewis?
And, after two, nasty, hard-fought Westchester elections over the last year (for county executive and for State Senate), is the electoral burnout over for the Westchester voter and are they ready to focus on a Democratic primary for Congress? We have the next 24 days to consider that question.
While Engel has two Democratic opponents, Rep. Nita Lowey, Westchester’s other long-serving member of Congress, has no Democratic opposition. Lowey, like Engel, has served in the House for more than 30 years.
