Word leaked a week ago that New York Democrats were working to delay the special election to replace Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-North Country).
This would leave nearly 800,000 New Yorkers without representation in Washington, DC for months.
The bill was introduced late last Friday night and the battle to prevent New York Democrats from subverting current state law, and the will of the voters, begins.
Congressman Mike Lawler (R-Hudson Valley), a potential opponent of Governor Hochul next year, said, “New York Democrats are engaged in an effort to subvert democracy and prevent voters from having their voices heard. They want to give Gov. Hochul the ability to delay filling NY21 until November. This is RICO. I’m asking DOJ to investigate immediately.”
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) has been driving the push to change New York election law and keep Elise Stefanik's House seat open for as long as possible. This would mean Republicans could not afford to lose one House member of the GOP breaking ranks and not voting for bills proposed by President Trump, since Republicans hold a super slim 218-215 seat majority over Democrats.
Lawler sent a letter to the US Department of Justice asking for a racketeering (RICO) investigation and a look into Rep. Jeffries, NYS Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins (D-Westchester) and NYS Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx).
"Governor Kathy Hochul has no interest in fair and honest government. Her latest assault on New York's Constitutional protections has made it official. It's all power politics all the time now in Albany - Democracy be damned,” said NYS Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar.
Congresswoman Stefanik is set to become the US Ambassador to the United Nations under President Trump necessitating the resignation of her seat in Congress. Under current NY law, Governor Kathy Hochul has 10 days to declare a special election for Stefanik’s seat and an additional 80 to 90 days to hold the election.
“The process for holding special elections was reformed in 2021 after years of governors playing games and refusing to call special elections for political reasons. The state legislature was right to reform the process in 2021,” says Joe Burns, election law expert and partner at Holtzman Vogel. “The bill that was introduced by Speaker Heastie and Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins will undo the 2021 reform and result in New Yorkers being disenfranchised and unrepresented.”
The seat is in a solidly Republican district and the new Congressperson will be a Republican, so why delay?
“The Conservative Party will support coming legal efforts to defend the rights of New York voters, just as we support Congressman Mike Lawler's call for a RICO investigation of top-to-bottom corruption in New York State government,” Kassar added. “These naked attempts have been stopped in court, one after another, by the Conservative Party and other defenders of democratic norms. The Governor should expect another major legal battle on her hands.”
New York Republican Party Chairman, Ed Cox, said “Power hungry Dems using their single party NY rule and backroom deals to deny NY voters their representation in Congress. Hochul enables this and the continual corruption of NY’s democracy by the Dems ham-handed, single-party rule.”
“The U.S. Constitution commands a state governor to call special elections for vacant Congressional seats to ensure that citizens are properly represented in Congress. Unnecessarily delaying these special elections and causing New Yorkers to be unrepresented in Congress is not what the framers of the Constitution intended,” concluded Burns.