We have to hold Republicans — and Rep. Mike Lawler — responsible for chaos in Congress

On Saturday, Republicans in Congress nearly shut down the federal government. Millions of federal workers, including thousands here in the Lower Hudson Valley, would have been sent home without a paycheck for the foreseeable future, and until House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s extreme right-wing caucus got its act together. For this and other chaos in Washington, Washington Republicans like Rep. Michael Lawler, who represents the 17th District, covering much of the Lower Hudson Valley, are to blame.

Constituents who watched Lawler’s recent performances on CNN — in which he described his fellow Republican colleagues as “lunatics” who would bear responsibility for grinding our federal agencies to a halt — may ask when Lawler will acknowledge his role in creating this crisis. Don’t hold your breath.

A career political operative who worked to elect and re-elect Donald Trump, Lawler’s recent media appearances are part of a strategy of using empty words to appear reasonable in a district that rejected Trump while in fact enabling MAGA extremism on Capitol Hill. This near-government shutdown, like the baseless impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, and our nation’s credit downgrade by Fitch ratings agency because America nearly defaulted on its debt last spring, could all have been avoided. But not so long as Lawler continues serving in Congress.

Lawler has played an active role in enabling MAGA extremism by voting for McCarthy to be House Speaker 15 times in January. When McCarthy failed to garner the necessary votes on ballot after ballot, Lawler was there for him, despite knowing that McCarthy would be in the pockets of extreme MAGA Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Lauren Boebert and Rep. Matt Gaetz.

A closer look at Lawler’s record is revealing. He supported the baseless impeachment inquiry into President Biden announced last month. He voted to overturn the ATF’s gun brace regulation, intended to make us all safer from America’s epidemic of mass shootings, and he voted to make it harder for our military servicemembers to get an abortion, even for rape victims.

On Friday, Lawler voted for a cruel and devastating 30% cut in federal spending. According to the White House, the budget Lawler voted for would have cut 12,500 FBI agents and nearly 1,000 Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives agents. His budget would have caused 250,000 children to lose access to child care and 3.2 million women, infants and children to lose nutrition assistance. Lawler’s budget would have defunded public education, with as many as 145,000 teachers and staff potentially getting taken out of the classroom. Moreover, Lawler would have defunded our seniors by closing up to 240 Social Security field offices or causing them to shorten the hours they are open to the public, and his budget would have cut one million seniors’ access to Meals on Wheels.

As the congressman for the 17th District until a few months ago, my focus was always on improving the lives of families in the Lower Hudson Valley. My colleagues and I rescued the U.S. economy from collapse at the height of COVID, kept our small businesses open, cut child poverty nearly in half for a time, and passed the Inflation Reduction Act to cap prescription drug costs for people on Medicare. As the youngest member of House leadership, I was especially proud to negotiate passage of the largest infrastructure law in generations. All of this legislation allowed me to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to our communities in the Lower Hudson Valley.

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By contrast, Washington Republicans like Lawler tried to jam through legislation that would have hurt millions of Americans with cruel budget cuts as a condition for keeping the federal government open. Respectfully, they are not serious people. Moreover, the Republican Party is preparing to renominate the twice impeached, serially indicted Trump, who has vowed to pardon the insurrectionists who nearly took my life and the lives of many of my colleagues on January 6th.

In July, I announced my campaign to return to Congress to stop this madness, and to restore serious leadership. I will resume my focus on the kitchen-table issues concerning Lower Hudson Valley residents: lowering prescription drug costs for everyone and making child care, housing, and education more affordable. I intend to restore basic freedoms like abortion through passing a law that reinstates Roe v. Wade. Unlike Lawler, I understand that improving public safety means passing an assault weapons ban, which was effective the last time America had such a law in the early 2000s. Moreover, as Washington Republicans wage the worst assault on our democracy since the 1960s, I am running to pass voting rights and other democracy legislation that I co-authored last term.

I know it sounds like a cliché to say November 2024 will be, yet again, the most important election of our lifetimes. But consider who will be on the ballot.

Mondaire Jones, a Democrat, represented New York's 17th Congressional District from 2021 to 2023.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Federal government shutdown: Hold GOP, Mike Lawler accountable: Jones