MOSHE HILL OPINION COLUMNS JANUARY 03 2024
The special election for New York’s 3rd Congressional District is rapidly approaching, and former Congressman Thomas Suozzi is trying to distance himself from his record and appear more moderate to be able to compete with Republican phenom Mazi Pilip. He’s claiming to be a moderate, who will vote against extremist Democrat agenda items should he be in Congress, yet nothing in his past voting history indicates that is true.
Fortunately, the internet can easily provide answers to these questions. ProPublica, which is considered a center-left website, has an online tool comparing the voting records of members of Congress. Suozzi was in Congress from 2017-2022, when he did not run for re-election because he launched a failed bid for the Governorship against Kathy Hochul. During 2 of his 3 terms, the Democrats were in the Majority. In that time, he had plenty of opportunities to vote against radical Democrat priorities. He literally never did.
Suozzi voted with Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time when the Democrats were in the Majority. Whatever priorities she supported, he went along without question. For those who have forgotten, some incredibly radical bills have passed Congress when Democrats took over the House in 2019. Most of them were dead on arrival in the Senate, which requires 60 votes to pass most bills and Republicans could stop many of them
Suozzi voted for the inaccurately named “For the People Act,” a radical restructuring of the election system in the country. This act would have enshrined into law ballot harvesting, automatic registration of voters with no checks on citizenship status, and gerrymandering of Congressional lines from Washington bureaucrats. It banned purging voter rolls (allegedly so dead people could keep voting for Democrats), and gave convicted felons the right to vote.
This massive act would have also allowed for government (aka taxpayer) funding of elections, calls for an end to Citizens United (which is a whole nother topic), removes anonymity from political donations (presumably to target Republican donors like they did to the founder of Home Depot), and makes the Federal Election Commission more partisan. Democrats love to complain that Donald Trump would destroy democracy in America, and that the next election would be the last while Suozzi and his fellow Democrats wanted to actually demolish voting in America permanently.
Suozzi also voted for the so-called “Equality Act.” Ryan Anderson, president of Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote at the time, “The Equality Act would sacrifice the hard-won rights of women, while privileging men who identify as women. If it becomes law, such men would have a right to spend the night in battered-women’s shelters, disrobe in women’s locker rooms and compete on women’s sports teams — even at K-12 schools….
“Under the Equality Act, religious schools, adoption agencies and other charities would face federal sanction for upholding the teachings of mainstream biology and the Bible, modern genetics and Genesis, when it comes to sex and marriage…. Outrageously, the Equality Act explicitly exempts itself from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Pope Francis would be treated as the legal equivalent of a Jim Crow segregationist.
“It gets worse. Medical doctors, secular and religious, whose expert judgment is that sex-reassignment procedures are misguided would now run afoul of our civil-rights laws. If you perform a mastectomy in the case of breast cancer, you will have to perform one on the teenage girl identifying as a boy. All in the name of equality….”
Suozzi also voted lockstep on all the Joe Biden spending proposals that sent the inflation rate skyrocketing, which sent the interest rates skyrocketing. If you bought a house in the past two years, or noticed that your grocery prices are wildly different than before the pandemic, you can, in part, thank Tom Suozzi.
Rehashing this is important because if Suozzi gets into office, the Democrats are closer to the majority. If they regain the majority next year, all of these bills are back on the table. Suozzi has never shown any backbone to the crazies in his party like Joe Manchin or Krysten Sinema has in the Senate. Meanwhile, on the Republican side of the aisle, Representatives actually have a say in their party. This has downsides, of course, like taking so long to actually vote in a Speaker, but it also means that dissent amongst the party ranks being a part of the campaign rings true when it’s a Republican saying it, but completely hollow when it’s a Democrat.
Suozzi told Jewish Insider that he is not aligned with the Squad on Israel, and that having a pro-Israel Democrat is more valuable than another pro-Israel Republican. This is ridiculous on its face. Electing a Democrat claiming to be pro-Israel in spite of the Hamas Caucus in their party is rewarding Democrats writ large while they have a Hamas caucus in their party. Remember, 184 Democrats voted “Nay” on censuring Rashida Tlaib for justifying a genocidal slogan against Jews. 105 Democrats declined to vote for a resolution condemning anti-Semitism because it included anti-Zionism as part of the condemnation. 194 Democrats voted against funding Israel in wartime because it didn’t include funding Ukraine also. That should not be rewarded by adding another member to their caucus.
Suozzi is also deliberately downplaying the importance, both emotionally and optically, of having Mazi Pilip, a former member of the IDF paratrooper brigade, being sworn into Congress while members of that same body are advocating for the destruction of Israel. Claims that the “pro-Israel” stance would be equally represented if either Mazi or Suozzi were elected is ridiculous on its face. That may not even be true regarding legislation and resolutions, it’s certainly not true regarding the optics of the situation.
Even if Suozzi voted lockstep with Republicans regarding Israel – which is a big if – there is zero indication in his history that he would vote against his party on any of the issues he already voted on. This means that, when it counts, he’s as radical as any member of the Squad. As long as Suozzi goes along with Democrat priorities, which is becoming more and more extreme with each passing year, he is an extremist. Everything in his record says that he will vote with Hakeem Jeffries (should Jeffries become Speaker) as much as he did with Nancy Pelosi. So-called Moderate Democrats no longer exist, and Suozzi isn’t changing that.
