But U.S. House candidates agree on little else
Racing toward Election Day, Republican incumbent Mike Lawler, who seeks re-election to the U.S. House representing District 17, which includes Philipstown, and his Democratic challenger, Mondaire Jones, agree that America must address crucial questions on abortion, border security, the environment, gun violence, law enforcement and relations with Israel.
But when it comes to approaches, they clash, as they did last week at a TV News 12 debate, when they interrupted each other and accused one another of lying.
An Emerson College/Pix11/The Hill poll of 630 likely voters in District 17 conducted three weeks ago showed a toss-up, with Lawler drawing 45 percent and Jones 44 percent, with a 3.8 percent margin of error. Three percent of respondents said they supported Anthony Frascone, the Working Parties candidate, and 7 percent said they were undecided.
According to the poll, the top issue for District 17 voters is the economy (32 percent), followed by immigration (20 percent), housing affordability (13 percent), crime (11 percent) and threats to democracy (10 percent). The poll found the presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in District 17 tied at 49 percent each.
Update: A poll conducted by Emerson College of 475 likely voters in District 17 from Oct. 24 to 26 found Lawler with 49 percent support and Jones with 44 percent, with a 4.4 percent margin of error. One percent of respondents said they supported Frascone and 7 percent remained undecided. Harris drew 50 percent support and Trump, 47 percent, with 2 percent undecided.
Raised by a single mother in Rockland County, Jones, 37, often recalls how he “grew up in Section 8 [subsidized housing] and on food stamps.” He earned degrees from Stanford and Harvard and, as a lawyer, worked in private practice and for the Justice Department and Westchester County district attorney.
Lawler, 38, also from Rockland, has been executive director of the New York State Republican Party, deputy town supervisor in Orangetown, a political lobbyist and consultant and a one-term state Assembly member.
Each has served a single House term and needs a victory on Nov. 5 to return to Capitol Hill.
In 2020, Jones won election to what was then the 17th District, covering suburban areas near New York City. Its boundaries substantially changed in a 2022 redistricting. Rather than run in the newly reconfigured 17th, which stretches northward to encompass sections of the former 18th District, including Philipstown, Jones competed in a House primary in New York City but lost. The same year, Lawler, who lives in Pearl River, defeated a Philipstown resident, Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney.
Frascone, who lives in Rockland County, won the Working Families line in a primary over Jones. Democratic Party leaders in Putnam and Westchester sued to remove his name, calling him a “a ghost candidate without a campaign, staff or spending,” backed by Republicans to draw votes from Jones. On Tuesday (Oct. 22), a state judge ruled it was too late to remove Frascone’s name.
Both Lawler and Jones claim to favor bipartisanship and political moderation, even as they portray each other as radicals.
Abortion
On his campaign website, Jones asserts that Lawler “supports letting politicians ban abortion without exceptions for rape and incest.” During News 12’s Oct. 16 debate, Jones said, “I want to restore women’s reproductive freedom, taken away when Republicans overturned Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 Supreme Court decision. By comparison, Jones said, Lawler holds an “extreme” position, “would be a reliable vote for a national abortion ban,” and favors outlawing abortion in New York.
“That is a lie,” Lawler interjected. He said Jones “has lied throughout this entire campaign” and that “the only extremist here is Jones. He supports abortion up to the moment of birth. He supports gender selection.”
“You know that’s not true,” Jones responded.
Lawler said he does not support a federal ban on abortion and that he has “always supported exceptions for rape, incest and the life and health of the mother” and “fought to codify access to IVF [in-vitro fertilization] in federal law and access to contraception. I fought back against my own party in the effort to ban mifepristone,” a drug used in non-surgical abortions.
Border security and immigration
Lawler said at the Oct. 16 debate that unauthorized immigration is a “crisis created by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and Mondaire Jones.” He claimed Jones backed “catch-and-release” treatment of undocumented immigrants and wanted to defund the Immigration and Customs Enforcement police.
Jones observed that the U.S. Senate, in a move led by a Republican, considered a bipartisan border-policing measure that went nowhere after former President Donald Trump complained. “We are dealing with a crisis” but Lawler “wants to block border-security legislation because Trump is telling him to do so,” Jones said.
Law enforcement and gun violence
On his campaign website, Jones advocates “common-sense gun reforms, including a ban on assault weapons.” During his House tenure, he said at the News 12 debate, Congress adopted “the most significant set of gun-safety reforms in 30 years.” However, according to Jones, his opponent remains “well outside the mainstream. He’s not bipartisan on this” or on other issues.
Lawler said that “there’s not a consensus” on Capitol Hill, where one key gun-control proposal “would ban nearly every semi-automatic weapon. And most guns are semi-automatic.” He also argued that “policies enacted, from cashless bail to raise-the-age, have made it less safe when it comes to gun violence” and that a majority of those arrested for gun violence get released.
“If we want to ensure safety, we need to prosecute criminals and those who use guns in commission of a crime,” he said. On his campaign website, he supports red-flag laws, “so long as they mandate due process, to keep guns out of the hands of those likely to harm themselves or others”; highlights his efforts to continue restrictions on guns that evade metal detectors; and backs “installation of panic alarms as part of all school-safety plans.”
The National Rifle Association awarded Lawler a B grade, indicating a “a generally pro-gun candidate.” It gave Jones an F, for a “true enemy of gun owners’ rights.”
Environment and energy
Lawler’s campaign cites his membership in the Climate Solutions Caucus and helping to introduce legislation to potentially provide $20 million annually “to ensure the Hudson River stays clean,” work “to keep radioactive wastewater out of the Hudson River” while encouraging efforts “to find a different solution for the decommissioning of Indian Point” and endorsement of bills “that would improve air quality, reduce emissions, improve recycling and composting capabilities.”
At the debate, Lawler urged “an all-of-the-above approach to energy,” including increased production. He referred to natural gas as “critical” because “it has reduced carbon emissions by 60 percent greater than renewables over the last two decades.” But he also said that “I believe in climate change. It is real.”
Jones responded that Lawler “votes just like an oil-and-gas lobbyist” while “I’m someone who actually delivered legislation that combats climate change” — the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, “the largest investment in combating climate change and in clean renewable energy any nation has ever undertaken.”
Israel
Lawler’s campaign calls Israel “our greatest ally” and ties his support to it, in part, to House legislation to penalize foreigners involved with Iran’s petroleum business, and his opposition to antisemitism on college campuses and within United Nations agencies. At the Oct. 16 debate, Lawler said he had “fought to get $18 billion in increased funding for Israel’s defenses” while Jones, as a House member, “had an abysmal record of doing anything to actually stand up for Israel.”
Jones alleged that Lawler “is manufacturing a number of lies about my record. I have always staunchly defended Israel and its right to defend itself.” His campaign says he “opposes antisemitism in all its forms [and] stood up to ‘the Squad’ ” — a faction of House Democrats — “to support Israel.” This year he sparked friction when he backed George Latimer in the Democratic primary for House District 16, instead of Rep. Jamaal Bowman, an outspoken critic of Israel’s actions and a member of the Squad.
Governance
Jones and Lawler recently outlined their concepts of governance, and blamed the nation’s troubles on each other or the other guy’s party.
Lawler characterized Jones as a “radical leftist.” By comparison, he said, he and fellow Republicans “don’t support allowing cop-killers and rapists the right to vote from prison. We don’t support calling all cops racists and white supremacists. We don’t support open borders and amnesty for criminal illegals. We don’t support socialism” or “government-run health care. And we sure as hell don’t support higher taxes and reckless spending on inflationary policies.”
Likewise, after Jones endorsed limiting the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients, Lawler remarked: “Leave it to an avowed socialist to praise price controls.”
Jones replied that “I never called myself a socialist.” He said that “for me, policy is personal,” a reflection of his childhood experiences. Further, “I never called all cops racist, never voted to cut funding for law enforcement and always voted to fund the police. When I was in Congress, we were part of the productive majority. We delivered for the American people, whereas my opponent is part of the Congress defined by chaos, extremism and incompetence. There’s no problem Lawler claims to be trying to solve that he isn’t responsible for helping create in the first place.”
Defining the 2024 election as “the most important of our lifetimes,” Jones averred that “if he cared about this country, he would not be supporting a man for president who tried to overturn the last presidential election and won’t commit to accepting the results this year.”
Lawler predicted that “our democracy will endure, no matter who wins.”
Wondering if so-called bipartisan Mike Lawler was at Trump’s Klan rally on Oct. 27, and what he thought of all the horrible things that were said? [via Facebook]
Anthony Frascone is not our candidate. Mike Lawler and Rockland Republicans hope to confuse voters, but don’t let them. You can vote for Working Families Party-endorsed candidates on Row A/Democrat line. [via Instagram]
Gitta is vice chair of the Westchester-Putnam chapter of the Working Families Party.