NCPR holding Stefanik accountable
Saratoga Book Festival has powerhouse lineup
By Ken Tingley
North Country Public Radio is one of the few media outlets upstate which has consistently held Rep. Elise Stefanik responsible to her constituents.
That doesn’t mean they hate her.
That does not mean they back any political ideology.
It means they are doing their job.
Rep. Stefanik has spent the last two months talking up what a great job she has done representing the North Country, but more importantly she has boasted about how much money she has brought back to the district. News outlets like North Country Public Radio should be checking her record to see if it is true.
Stefanik says she has brought $600 million in federal funds into the 21st Congressional District.
That’s a lot of money.
What North Country Public Radio did in a story by Zach Hirsch this week was try to review what the congresswoman had done for her district and question elected officials about the job she had done.
That is good journalism.
But the reporting is more nuanced than than. What you have to remember is that every representative’s bread and butter is constituent services. When businesses or regular citizens reach out for help with a grant application or are looking for federal funding, it is not unusual to ask their congressperson for help.
In July, Stefanik said she was focused on Social Security case work, Medicare and VA issues. That is also the bread and butter for all members of Congress, past and present.
Lake George Mayor Robert Blais credited Stefanik with securing a $500,000 grant to help pay for a $20 million wastewater treatment plant that Lake George desperately needed. Blais said she wrote a letter of support for the grant, then showed up to take credit for it when it was approved.
The Village of Dolgevile credited her with helping them to get $1.9 in FEMA funding after the village was hit with severe flooding.
Clarkson University said Stefanik helped them get research grants. SUNY Plattsburgh said Stefanik’s office intervened to get them funding for their Upward Bound program.
This is what congressional representatives are supposed to do.
The town supervisor in the town of Caroga applied for a federal grant after the town hall was damaged by fire. But the town did not get the money.
“It was not supported by the Congresswoman and I think it should have been,” Supervisor Scott Horton told NCPR. He believed the community was too small and didn’t have enough voters to get her attention.
Granted, you can’t make everyone happy.
NCPR pointed out that correction officers have recently criticized Stefanik for ignoring their issues.
NCPR found that most local leaders say she’s responsive and very “hands on” when requests are made.
North Country Public Radio also said this: “Our reporting found a lot of leaders who echoed that praise. But we also found that the way Stefanik talked about her work on local issues includes a lot of misleading information.”
In a press release, Stefanik claimed to have delivered over $586,000 in funding for NY-21 fire departments, but the fine print acknowledged she did not help all of the fire companies who got the grants. That rubbed some of the firemen the wrong way because they got the grants on their own.
Stefanik also took credit for more than $126,000 awarded to the Potsdam Volunteer Rescue Squad, but their chief, Chris Towler, told NCPR that the company did not solicit any help for the federal grant. They also got it on their own.
“This has been a pattern with her over and over again,” Democratic activist Phyllis Sinclair told the radio station. The group has attempted to track what Stefanik says about her constituent services, but it is also campaigning for her opponent.
The question voters should be asking is if Rep. Stefanik has done better than best representatives. That question is open for debate.
But here is what is more important.
Stefanik has repeatedly taken credit for funding projects she voted against in Congress such as the American Rescue Covid relief plan and the infrastructure bill.
When the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe received over $850,000 from the Covid relief package, Stefanik bragged about getting them the grant even though she voted against the bill that funded it.
Earlier this year, she worked to include North Country projects as part of the federal budget, but then voted against those projects when the budget came up for a vote. She still took credit for them.
All of this money is part of the $600 million she boasts she brought to the district. It appears that most of that money would have been funded no matter who was in Congress.
Several of Republican leaders who talked to NCPR said they her “baffled” by Stefanik’s loyalty to Donald Trump, including Blais in Lake George.
Blais told NCPR this:
“As you go up through the ranks, through each level of government, you tend to sell yourself a little bit to the people that are your donors, the people that are your backers. And if you hitch your wagon to the wrong individual, then you don’t become that person that you wanna become.”
Over the past year, Stefanik has voted to overturn the 2020 election.
She objected to the electors in the state of Pennsylvania on Jan. 6.
She repeated a false conspiracy theory about immigration.
And a few hours after writing this article, she tweeted “Joe Biden has weaponized and politicized the FBI to target his political opponents. When Republicans earn back the house, we will hold them accountable.”
In those 24 words, she made an accusation about one of the premier law enforcement agencies in the world, then threaten revenge if Republicans gained power.”
That is stunning for someone who represents us here in the North Country.
Before her campaign began in 2019, The Post-Star editorial board asked her to make a pledge “not to lie” during her campaign.
She did not take the pledge.
It has been all down here ever since.
Talking with Arbetter
If you are not familiar with the work of Susan Arbetter, you should be.
Arbetter has been covering state politics for decades and currently hosts the Capital Tonight news show on Spectrum.
If you want to know what is going on in New York political circles, you need to watch Capital Tonight. One of its reporters is former Post-Star reporter Nick Reisman.
Arbetter interviewed me this past week about the future of newspapers and my new book “The Last American Newspaper.”
Susan is a tough but fair interviewer. You should check out her show.
Another mailer
Most of us received a big full color postcard from state Sen. Dan Stec giving us tips on how to keep “safe and warm” this winter while also saving money.
Hopefully, most of us already know how to do that.
You won’t be surprised to learn Stec is up for re-election next month and his mailer - that taxpayers paid for - just got out under the 30-day rule incumbents have send literature before Election Day. It’s one of the advantages that incumbents in both parties use.
In these days of email and social media it probably is time for all elected officials to get rid of this practice. Four years ago, the Empire Center estimated that Legislature spent $6 million on the postcards which are nothing more than political flyers.
Most of us just throw them away, but the worst part is that politicians are throwing away our money.
Book Festival
The Saratoga Book Festival - in just its second year Oct. 21-23 - is shaping up with a powerhouse lineup. Some of the sessions are asking for preregistration so you might want to check it out now. If you are interested in journalism, the future of newspapers and my new book “The Last American Newspaper” you might be interested in seeing the conversation between WAMC host Joe Donahue and local journalists Will Doolittle, Mark Mahoney and myself. That session will be held on Saturday, Oct. 22 at 9:30 a.m. in downtown Saratoga Springs.
Thanks for stating what I have always been saying: Stefanik takes credit for money she brings to our district after voting against the bills that awarded the funds. It's like taking credit for baking from scratch a Betty Crocker cake. But her lies are bigger than that and more dangerous.
The minimum efforts required by any representative in Congress is to have her staff assisting in the paperwork for service grants. Effective congressmen have competent staffs who can answer questions or state the congressman's leanings on the issues before them in the House. This is not the case with Stefanik's interns. And, by the way, when she touts the huge number of responses to individual outreach by her constituents it includes every phone call and visit to her office urging her to support a bill or to voice complaints about her votes or outrageous statements. Her response is the sending of a form letter stating she is "happy to serve you," and to tick-up the number of her responses. I've stopped calling.
Stefanik doesn't do much of anything for the money these folks have gotten. They write and submit the grants themselves. She decides who is worthy of a letter from her to support that grant. It's very strategic based on the votes she will acquire and how useful it would be to her personally. All very similar to other MAGA politicians. The world is made of givers and takers. We all know which category Elise is in.
DeSantis voted against hurricane relief for Sandy but of course expects help now so he can brag about how nicely he worked with Biden to save his state. Gaetz voted against relief for his own state. Rubio doesn't even bother to show up so he doesn't have to take responsibility for voting against a bill. Yet people continue to vote for these jokers.