We did only give two cheers – not three – to Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (NY-03) and two other Republican Long Island representatives who voted three times against hard-right bomb thrower Rep. Jim Jordan for speaker of the House.
As we noted, Jordan had passed zero legislation since taking office, had been called a “legislative terrorist” by former Republican House Speaker John Boehner and supported former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
But in hindsight, we were too generous in giving D’Esposito as well as fellow Long Island Congressmen Nick LaLota and Andrew Gabarino credit for their votes against Jordan.
Not that D’Esposito and his Republican colleagues didn’t warn us.
They said in a press release explaining their vote against Jordan that they were “steadfast” in their demand for state and local tax cap relief, healthcare funding, flood insurance legislation and that “runaway federal spending” must be curbed in “a responsible manner.”
The statement said nothing about Jordan’s abysmal legislative record or his help in trying to overturn the will of the people in the last presidential election.
Still, it is surprising that D’Esposito, LaLota and Gabarino, whom some had called moderates, joined the rest of the Republican caucus in a unanimous vote to make far-right Rep. Mike Johnson (LA-04) speaker of the House.
How far right?
Johnson has promoted the United States as a “Christian nation,” opposes same-sex marriage, abortion and some contraceptives, wants to slash the social safety net, doubts climate change and blames mass shootings on no-fault divorce laws, feminism and Roe v. Wade.
He also was a ringleader of House Republicans’ support of Texas’ request to the Supreme Court to throw out election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This would have disenfranchised more than 20 million voters and changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
The Supreme Court tossed out the suit in a few sentences, saying Texas lacked standing to bring the lawsuit.
In supporting Johnson, D’Esposito and his Long Island Republican colleagues said nothing about what they needed in a speaker when Jordan was being considered.
Perhaps the three congressmen wanted to end the three weeks of paralysis in the House while Republicans decided on a new speaker. Perhaps they are the “squishes” that far-right House members said they were and folded under pressure. Or perhaps they support Johnson’s policies.
As they say, actions speak louder than words.
After his vote, D’Esposito co-sponsored legislation presented by Johnson for $14.3 billion in aid to Israel that his press release hailed as supporting our ally in the midst of its war with Hamas.
This is untrue for several reasons.
The $14.3 billion was the first emergency aid package ever to include a spending offset. Ever.
And the offset, made in the name of curbing “runaway spending,” was a $14.3 billion cut in money for IRS examiners, which it turns out was no offset at all.
The Congressional Budget Office said the resulting reduction in IRS examiners would cost the federal government $28 billion in money lost to people not paying what they owed in taxes.
In other words, D’Esposito and his fellow Republicans were leveraging aid to Israel to help billionaire tax cheats.
The other problem with this legislation is that it has no chance in the U.S. Senate.
A majority of the Senate, including Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, supports the $106 billion supplemental bill proposed by President Biden that includes aid of $14.3 billion to Israel, $61.4 million for Ukraine, $13.6 billion for border protection as well as $7.4 billion for a variety of initiatives geared toward restraining China and its threat to Taiwan.
The border protection portion includes money to hire 1,300 additional border patrol agents, 1,600 new asylum officers and 375 new judge teams. It also calls for $1.2 billion to counter smuggling of the deadly drug fentanyl.
The political grandstanding by House Republicans delays this critical aid to Israel and threatens our continued support of Ukraine at a time when both countries are at war.
The New York Republicans, almost all of whom are considered politically vulnerable in 2024, were not done with their political grandstanding
On another front, D’Esposito introduced a privileged resolution – co-sponsored by LaLota and three Upstate Republican congressmen Marc Molinaro, Brandon Williams, and Mike Lawler – to expel beleaguered Republican Rep. George Santos, who represents northern Nassau County and a portion of northeast Queens.
Santos has been an albatross around New York’s Republican Congressional delegation since reports began appearing about the lies he told to voters during his election run citing his education, religion, work record and wealth.
Federal prosecutors later charged Santos with 23 felony counts for his participation in a series of financial schemes involving his personal and campaign finances.
D’Esposito said in a press release that while Santos is entitled to his day in court, “the people of New York’s 3rd Congressional District deserve a representative who is solely focused on serving the public and not spending the majority of their time combating 23 federal charges such as wire fraud, money laundering and theft of public fund.”
D’Esposito did not explain why he introduced the resolution at this time when he voted in May against a similar bill proposed by Democrats.
In May, he supported a vote to turn Santos’ various transgressions over to the House Ethics Committee, which was said to be near a decision as D’Esposito filed his resolution.
D’Esposito’s resolution, which required a two-thirds House vote, fell far short with 213 votes against, 179 in favor and 19 representatives voting present.
Among the no’s was Johnson, who made the not-so-principled argument that expelling Santos threatened the Republicans’ narrow majority in the House. And Johnson’s job as House speaker.
D’Esposito has also yet to explain why he and his fellow Republican representatives are not holding former President Donald Trump to something even close to the standard for Santos.
Trump was found by the Washington Post to have lied or exaggerated more than 30,000 times as president, including the Big Lie that he won the 2020 presidential election – something he continues to say to this day.
The former president now faces 91 credible felony charges, made by four separate grand juries, that include allegations that the 45th president tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election and stole classified documents that include nuclear secrets and war plans for Iran.
He has already been convicted in civil court of what a federal judge says amounts to rape and his company has been found liable in New York State of a massive fraud stretching back many years in a case brought by Attorney General Letitia James.
And three of his top campaign lawyers have already pleaded guilty in Atlanta for their role in trying to overturn the 2020 election on Trump’s behalf.
A former New York City police detective, D’Esposito has cited his strong support of police.
How then to explain his support of Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in which the lives of Congress members were endangered and more than 40 police were injured with three police officers dying in the aftermath?
We will hazard a guess. Political survival.
Trump remains popular with the Republican base. Santos is very unpopular with everyone in New York, Republicans as well as Democrats.
Santos also raises some unpleasant questions about Long Island Republicans, including D’Esposito.
For one, if the Nassau Republican Party could nominate Santos not once but twice, were their standards equally low in picking D’Esposito?
A second question involves Santos’ former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks.
She recently pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring with Santos to commit wire fraud, make materially false statements, obstruct the administration of the Federal Election Commission and commit aggravated identity theft.
But the Santos campaign was not the first Marks worked on.
She previously handled the finances of not only Santos but John Flanagan, a former state senator and majority leader, and Lee Zeldin, a former congressman who narrowly lost last year’s governor’s race.
She also served as treasurer for the Santos D’Esposito Nassau Victory Fund, a joint fund-raising committee between Santos and Esposito.
Did Marks’ violations of campaign finance law just begin with Santos or did she break the law in other campaigns? Lots of people must be wondering.
What people can stop wondering about is whether D’Esposito and his fellow New York Republicans are willing to side with the far-right extreme in the House Republican caucus. If not share their views.
These New York Republican Congressmen go through the motions of posing as “moderate” and “rational – to appease a much more moderate, rational, even liberal constituency – but have gone along with the MAGA right-wing extremist Republican party 100 percent of the time. They could have voted against Mike Johnson as speaker but embraced him. They knew full well that there wouldn’t be a two-thirds vote to expel George Santos, so they could look like they were standing up for accountability but know the Republicans need Santos’ vote to effectuate their extreme agenda. When you hear Lawler speak, you know he follows the anti-democratic agenda, but like now-Speaker Johnson, has a pleasant smile, articulates well. Let’s not forget that the four flips in New York State (not to mention the Republican-favored redistricting, and the loss of a Congressional seat for the lack of 89 Census respondents on April 1, when NYS was the epicenter of the deadly coronavirus pandemic), is why Republicans control the House and are in a position to destabilize the US. They are already responsible for credit downgrades (making investment in infrastructure more costly, therefore less expansive) and are poised to shut down government again. It is telling that they are holding Israel aid hostage to cutting IRS enforcement by $14 billion, and are withholding Ukraine (to satisfy Putin).