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August 3rd, 2023 Len’s Political Note #578 Mondaire Jones New York 17
2024 General Election
Mondaire Jones is home. He was born in Nyack, grew up in Spring Valley, graduated from East Ramapo High School. We are talking about the suburbs, but not wealthy suburbs. Mondaire Jones grew up in a single parent home with a mom who was beset by mental illness. His grandparents were crucial. Grandpa was a janitor. Grandma cleaned homes until she got a job as a lunch lady in the East Ramapo schools. She worked at that job well into her 70s. With her daughter incapacitated, she took her grandson with her when she cleaned houses. When he was old enough to help clean, he helped clean up.
Mondaire Jones cleaned up in other ways, too. He went to Stanford and got his BA. From there, like lots of ambitious young men, he went to Washington. Awarded a John Gardner Public Service Fellowship, he spent a year in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy. Then he went to Harvard Law School to get his JD. He spent a total of four years after law school working in a big corporate law firm and serving as a clerk in a US District Court.
Then he paused. And I will pause, too. We know of one Black man whose psyche was affected by a tough question. Did affirmative action affect his entrance into a prestigious college and law school. Did affirmative action lead prospective employers and others think he was less able than his peers? That troubling question led the current Supreme Court Justice to a vision that has almost certainly harmed the country.
Mondaire Jones is unaffected and untroubled by questions about whether his school admissions or his big firm and big salary were a product of affirmative action. He used to tell needy kids in Rockland County in the leadership program he co-founded they should “believe in themselves. It all starts with commitment, hard work, and defying he odds to [achieve] success.”
Mondaire Jones left his big firm to work for the Westchester County Attorney’s Office. He spent more than a year there, then began running for Congress. The incumbent, Nita Lowey was retiring.
Mondaire Jones was not a cautious candidate. He ran as if he were an insurgent running against the incumbent. In a statement about why he was running for Congress, he noted the strengths of the retiring incumbent, then criticized her. He acknowledged that she, as Chair of the Appropriations Committee, had been a trailblazer and had notable successes. But she had authorized $7.6 Billion for ICE which was tearing families apart at the border and locking kids in cages. ICE was committing human rights abuses right within District NY17. He pointed to her support for the Iraq War and her opposition to President Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal. He tied her to Trump, explaining she got her way on the nuclear deal with Iran when Trump rescinded it.
Mondaire Jones made recounting her errors personal. A gay man, he said when he was a kid in the 90s struggling with his identify her support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which discriminated against LGBTQ Americans, “sent a message to us that we were less than human.” Her support for the Crime Bill “accelerated mass incarceration and ravaged low-income communities and communities of color.”
Mondaire Jones was elected convincingly. In 2020, in a 7 person primary, he got 42% of the vote. The second place candidate got 16%. He defeated the Republican in the general election 59% to 35%. In Congress, he was a rising star. He was unafraid to call Republicans racists when they were being racist – about statehood for the District of Columbia, for instance. The worst anyone can say about Mondaire Jones’ term in Congress is that, under new rules created for Covid which allowed proxy voting, he voted by proxy when he was attending a wedding in Europe.
In 2022, he paused again. Sean Patrick Maloney, the Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Representative of the District north and east of Mondaire Jones’ district, announced he would run in NY 17. Mondaire Jones gave the situation some thought and decided against a primary competition with Maloney. He would not run for Congress from that District in 2022.
Neither Democrat came out well from that experience. Mondaire Jones entered the open seat race for NY 10 in Manhattan and Brooklyn, which he described as America’s home for the fight for gay rights. In a 10 person Democratic primary, he came in third behind the winner Dan Goldman, who spent $7 million and the local Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou. Sean Patrick Maloney defeated primary latecomer State Senator Alessandra Biaggi 66-33, but lost the general election by a point to Republican Assemblyman Michael Lawler.
If Mondaire Jones’ internal poll, conducted by the respected Democratic polling company PPP, is accurate, he will have little trouble gaining the 2024 Democratic nomination. The poll found he had a 43-8 lead over local School Board Member Liz Whitmer Gereghty, sister of Michigan’s governor. Furthermore, according to the poll, the people in the district still think well of Mondaire Jones – with 51% thinking favorably of him and only 14% not.
Mondaire Jones will have to defeat Michael Lawler, which is not an automatic even though Lawler is #4 on Len’s List of vulnerable Republican House incumbents. Lawler has been threading the needle in Congress with some success. He has called for Representative George Santos to resign and supported Kevin McCarthy for Speaker. He supported eliminating the funds for additional IRS staff (after all, who loves taxmen?). Along with a conservative Democrat from New Jersey, he introduced a bill to prohibit the MTA from creating congestion pricing within New York City (A plan to move suburbanites to public transportation when going to the City). He voted to censure California Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff (do New Yorkers care about a California Congressman?), but was one of five Republicans to oppose the so-called Parents Bill of Rights.
Mondaire Jones will need to help his constituents to identify reasons to vote for him and to vote against Mike Lawler. Will issues be crucial? Mondaire Jones says: “During his time in Congress, [he] delivered record law enforcement funding to support our police officers and keep families safe, built a record as a staunch defender of Israel, and worked to block members of Congress from getting rich off the stock market.” On his Congressional website, Lawler says not a word about what issues he supported and what he opposed. The campaign website that Lawler has up is from 2022. He says he was pragmatic and bipartisan in the New York Assembly which meant “additional funding for law enforcement and first responders, tax relief for middle class families, and historic funding increase for our schools in the Hudson Valley.”
Don’t be fooled. Help provide enough resources so that the voters of New York 17 are not fooled. There is a big difference between what Democrats and Republicans support in a House of Representatives manipulated by the radical right. Whether or not New York Democrats redistrict the state’s Congressional seats before the 2024 election, northeastern Democrats can flip enough seats to flip Congress. Help Mondaire Jones regain his spot in Congress.
Four Democrats Who Can Defeat Vulnerable House Republican Incumbents in the Northeast
Republican Brandon Williams of New York 22 is #6 on Len’s List. Town Board Member and former candidate Sarah Klee Hood is the front runner to take on one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress. Other Democrats in the running include history professor Clemmie Harris and State Senator John Mannion. Len’s Political Note #557
Republican Marc Molinaro of New York 19 is #9 on Len’s List. Attorney, former Congressional staffer, and 2022 candidate Josh Riley is the front runner in this race. Len’s Political Note #580
Republican Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey 07 is #14 on Len’s List. Activist, basketball player and coach, and former head of the state Working Families Party Sue Altman is the front runner in the race for the nomination. Len’s Political Note #578
Republican Scott Perry of Pennsylvania 10 is #23 on Len’s List. Perry is a particular target because he was one of the most active Members of Congress in supporting Donald Trump’s attempted coup in 2020. City Councilwoman and 2022 candidate Shamaine Daniels will be the nominee. Len’s Political Note #559
Two other vulnerable New York Republicans
Republican Anthony D’Esposito of New York 04 is #15 on Len’s List. Former Town Supervisor and 2022 candidate Laura Gillen is the front runner, but not so clearly that I am prepared to write a Note about her candidacy yet. I hope I don’t have to wait until the June, 2024 primary.
Republican George Santos of New York 03 is the most vulnerable Republican Member of the House. So many Democrats and a few Republicans are running to defeat him, we won’t know who the candidates are until after the June 2024 primary.
