A defense of Congressman Lawler’s bipartisan record

Dear Editor,

In the July 2 edition, the North Salem Democratic Committee devoted nearly 800 words to Congressman Mike Lawler and President Trump's May 22 visit to Rockland Community College (“North Salem Democrats challenge Lawler's moderate image,” Page 15).

Somehow, in all those words, they never once mentioned why a President came to Rockland for the first time in over 50 years, or the two Hudson Valley families at the center of that day. That omission tells you everything you need to know about the rest of the letter.

President Trump posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor our nation bestows, to Welles Remy Crowther of Upper Nyack (the Man in the Red Bandana). Welles was a 24-year-old equities trader and volunteer firefighter who, on Sept. 11, 2001, went back into the burning South Tower again and again, leading at least 18 people to safety before the building collapsed and took his life.

Congressman Lawler spent the past year championing that recognition by introducing legislation to honor Welles, making the case at Empire Hook & Ladder in Upper Nyack, where Welles volunteered, and personally giving the President a red bandana from Welles' mother, Alison, on the anniversary of 9/11 last year. On May 22, with Alison Crowther on that stage, the effort succeeded. Ahead of the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, a Hudson Valley hero will finally receive our country's highest honor.

The crowd also heard from Tom and Jessica Gorman of Yorktown, our neighbors here in northern Westchester, whose 18-year-old daughter, Sheridan Grace Gorman, a freshman at Loyola University Chicago, was murdered in March. The man charged with killing her entered this country illegally and had been arrested, then released back onto the street, under Chicago's sanctuary policies- the same kind of policies on the books in Westchester County and New York State. Tom Gorman told the crowd, “Protecting our people is not politics. It is the first responsibility of government.”

The Democratic Committee wrote an entire letter about that event and couldn't find room for Welles Crowther's name or Sheridan Gorman's.

We'll let readers judge who is “paying lip service.”

As for the manufactured outrage that Congressman Lawler attended a presidential visit to his own district: he did the exact same thing when President Biden came to Westchester in May 2023. And what did President Biden, a Democrat, say from the podium in Valhalla, with Lawler in the audience? “He's not one of these MAGA Republicans.” When presidents of both parties single you out as someone they can work with, you are not an extremist. You are doing your job and representing your district.

Now to the Democratic Committee's central claim: that Lawler's voting record makes him “MAGA Mike.”

The facts say otherwise, and they aren't our facts. Georgetown University's McCourt School and the nonpartisan Lugar Center ranked Mike Lawler the fourth-most bipartisan member of the entire House of Representatives. He was rated the most effective freshman lawmaker of the last Congress.

He is one of only three Republicans in America who won a district Kamala Harris carried.

Mike Lawler continues to prove time and time again that he puts our district first, ahead of national politics.

His record backs up the numbers. Lawler broke with party leadership, signed a discharge petition, and voted to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, bringing other Republicans along with him.

He is leading the fight to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, a cause vital to thousands of Rockland families, and personally secured the release of a Spring Valley High School student and a Scarsdale High School graduate detained by ICE.

He fought to restore New York's counterterrorism funding, staffing for the World Trade Center Health Program, and funding for the Gateway Tunnel.

Does that sound like a man who votes in lockstep with anyone?

On healthcare, the Committee recycles DC Democrat’s “deciding vote” attack and then predicts hospital closures. Let's deal in facts. No hospital in NY-17 has announced any closures; the “45 hospitals at risk” figure is a projection from Public Citizen, a left-wing advocacy group, not a statement from either hospital. What the bill actually did was ask able-bodied adults without young children to work, volunteer, or attend school 20 hours a week; verify eligibility; and stop benefits from flowing to those here illegally.

What Lawler actually did in that negotiation was dig in against cuts to the federal Medicaid match and against per-capita caps- the two changes that would have genuinely hammered New York, the only state that forces county property taxpayers to fund a quarter of its Medicaid program. He then pushed to honor the bill's managed-care tax transition, saving New York roughly $1 billion, and helped shake loose more than $2 billion in FEMA funds owed to New York hospitals.

Mark Geller, the CEO of Montefiore Nyack Hospital, thanked Congressman Lawler at his campaign kickoff for his work to deliver that funding to hospitals across New York State. And that same bill quadrupled the SALT deduction cap to $40,000, ended taxes on tips and overtime, and preserved the Child Tax Credit for nearly 88,000 families in this district, delivering a tax cut to over 93% of Hudson Valley home and business owners.

As for tariffs and Iran: Lawler has repeatedly said that tariffs are a negotiating tool, not a permanent policy, and that Congress should step in if the trade war drags on. And his signature Iran sanctions laws, the SHIP Act and the Iran-China Energy Sanctions Act, were written with Democrats Jared Moskowitz and Josh Gottheimer and signed into law by President Biden, as was his very first bill, the Special Envoy for the Abraham Accords Act, co-authored with Bronx Democrat Ritchie Torres. So much for bipartisan efforts that “did not succeed legislatively.”

The Democratic Committee closed by saying that once voters “hear the facts,” they'll know what to do this November. On that, we agree completely. The facts are a congressman ranked the fourth-most bipartisan of 435, praised by presidents of both parties, who takes on his own side whenever the Hudson Valley requires it and who stood with the family of a 9/11 hero and the grieving parents of a murdered Westchester teenager while his critics pretended neither existed.

I'll take that record over a recycled slogan every single time.

-Paul Rinaldi, District leader, North Salem Republican Town Committee