MOTIVATION TO RUN FOR OFFICE |
Tedra Cobb has long been motivated by public service and a desire to serve her community. Cobb consistently has been an outspoken advocate for term limits and does not intend to make politics a lifelong
profession. |
In 2014, Elise Stefanik likely viewed the 21st District as a launching pad in her quest to climb the career ladder in Washington D.C. politics. Before running for office, Stefanik even bought the domain names, eliseforsenate.com and eliseforpresident.com. |
vested interest in the NORTH COUNTRY community
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Tedra Cobb has lived, worked and resided full-time in St. Lawrence County since 1985 where she has raised a family and presently owns a strategic consulting business. Cobb’s husband operates a solar energy installation business serving residences throughout the North Country. |
Elise Stefanik has lived, worked and resided full-time in Washington D.C. since 2006 and is married to a longtime D.C. political operative who is a native of Kansas. Stefanik has never actually lived in the North Country and hasn’t actually physically resided in the State of New York since she graduated from an expensive private school in Albany more than 16 years ago in 2002.
Stefanik currently claims her parents’ vacation home on Lake Champlain in Essex County as her “residence.” (Apparently, Stefanik has no regard for New York State ballot access laws which require members of Congress to live in-state.)
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community service & civic engagement |
Tedra Cobb served on multiple North Country hospital and hospice boards after she founded a successful non-profit community health coalition in St. Lawrence County. In 2014, Cobb served on a state commission aimed at improving health care access throughout northern New York State. |
Elise Stefanik still has yet to provide one example of any community service or charitable work that she has ever performed on behalf of the citizens of the North Country and/or Upstate New York. |
SOURCE OF CAMPAIGN FUNDING |
Tedra Cobb’s campaign has almost been entirely funded by local small-money donors from Upstate New York and the North Country. Cobb has taken a pledge not to accept any contributions from corporate PACs or corporate lobbyists.
Cobb recently received the endorsement of End Citizens United (ECU) for her strong stances in support of campaign finance reform. You can click here to view a questionnaire that Cobb filled out for ECU where she affirms her support for closing various campaign finance loopholes, as well as passing several legislative measures which would require greater transparency and disclosure over the sources who fund and finance political candidates throughout the U.S.
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Data complied at opensecrets.org reveals that only 15% of Elise Stefanik’s contributions come from within the 21st District and over half of her contributions come from out of state. According to FEC filings, a significant share of Stefanik’s money comes from New York City hedge funds, as well as D.C. lobbyists who have worked on behalf of a wide variety of unsavory interests, including big energy, big banks and big tobacco.
Since 2014, Stefanik’s single largest contributor has been Elliott Management, the Manhattan hedge fund firm of billionaire vulture capitalist Paul Singer, who for many years profited off of the collapse of Argentina’s economy.
After two terms in office, Stefanik still has yet to take a position on where she stands regarding campaign finance reform legislation.
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transparency |
Tedra Cobb has repeatedly pledged to hold 12 in-person town hall meetings per year; one in each of the 12 counties of the 21st District. |
Elise Stefanik didn’t hold a single in-person town hall meeting throughout the entire year of 2017. Not one. At various points in time, Stefanik even threatened law enforcement on peaceful demonstrators who were protesting her continued refusal to conduct any in-person town hall meetings.
After months of rather intensive criticism, Stefanik finally broke down and held two brief town hall meetings in April of 2018 at inconvenient times in small venues.
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BIPARTISANSHIP |
Tedra Cobb has a proven track record of reaching across the aisle; she frequently worked with her GOP colleagues while she was one of the only Democrats serving on the predominantly Republican St. Lawrence County Legislature.
Cobb worked with the Republicans on budget matters that involved dealing with numerous unfunded federal and state mandates during the early 2000s.
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Elise Stefanik is not really “bipartisan;” she presently is a member of the Republican Deputy Whip Team where it is her duty and responsibility to coerce wavering Republican House members to support all major GOP bills and not to ever break from the party’s agenda.
During her past term, Stefanik hasn’t voted to defeat a single piece of Republican-backed legislation. Every single one of the small number of token GOP bills that Stefanik opposed in order to falsely brand herself as a “moderate” ultimately passed in the House. (Source: NY21Watchdog — see tweets from 1/1/18) In essence, the only times when Elise Stefanik ever strayed from the Republican Party congressional agenda was when she already knew that the legislation she about to vote on was certain to pass and that House Speaker Paul Ryan didn’t need her vote. (Furthermore, in her role as a Deputy Whip, Stefanik was still likely working behind closed doors to garner support for many of the Republican bills that she voted against and claimed to oppose.)
According to the statistical analysis website, FiveThirtyEight.com, Stefanik has voted in support of the Republican Party’s major pieces of legislation 89.9% of the time during her current term in Congress.
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT |
According to her campaign website, Tedra Cobb is committed to improving the North Country economy through small business development, infrastructure improvements, investing in renewable energy and supporting existing industries in Northern New York State, such as tourism, technology, farming and agriculture. |
Although Elise Stefanik heavily campaigned on economic development and turning around the North Country economy during her two previous campaigns, overall, she has had pretty lackluster results.
As I highlighted in a diary last month, according to Census Bureau statistics, since Stefanik was elected in 2014, Saratoga and Warren Counties were the only two North Country counties that didn’t lose population. Jefferson County (Watertown), the most heavily populated county that is fully encompassed within the 21st District, had the second highest population decline in the United States from 2015-2016.
Unlike some of her predecessors, Stefanik doesn’t sit on any committees which enable her to allocate substantial grants/subsidies back into the region to help foster economic development. Former Congressmen Bill Owens (D) and John Sweeney (R), who once represented eastern portions of the North Country, both sat on the influential and powerful House Appropriations Committee. Kirsten Gillibrand (D), while she was in the House, and former Congressman Scott Murphy (D) were both on the House Agricultural Committee, a boon for the farmers in this region at the time.
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protecting social security & medicare |
Tedra Cobb supports protecting Social Security and Medicare for all current recipients, as well as for future generations. |
Elise Stefanik, while working as a D.C. political operative in 2012, was one of the chief architects of a controversial right-wing scheme that was effectively aiming to dismantle Social Security and Medicare as we have known it for generations. While serving as the policy director for the RNC Platform Documents, Stefanik helped to write the planks calling for the full privatization of Social Security and the conversion of Medicare into a voucher program. According to an August 2, 2012 article from The Hill magazine, Stefanik actively coordinated sessions where she sought the input of high-profile corporate lobbyists as she was drafting sections of the platform documents.
In addition, Stefanik also voted for the American Health Care Act of 2017, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted would have raided the Medicare Trust Fund of $117 billion in order to provide more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This is a clear break of Stefanik’s previous promise that she wouldn’t support any legislation that would harm Social Security and Medicare for current recipients or individuals near retirement age.
Furthermore, during an August 2014 interview with the local CBS affiliate in Watertown, New York, Stefanik claimed that Congress should consider using a new formula for Social Security (Chained CPI), which would cut benefits for seniors and current recipients.
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women’s issues & reproductive rights |
Tedra Cobb has pledged to be a strong and consistent voice in favor of women’s reproductive freedoms if elected to Congress.
In addition, Cobb favors pay equity legislation, requiring employers to pay women equally to men.
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Elise Stefanik has been a rather strong and consistent voice against women’s reproductive freedoms over her last two terms in office, regularly supporting restrictive anti-choice legislation aimed at curtailing a woman’s right to control her own body. Stefanik has voted several times to defund Planned Parenthood.
Elise Stefanik voted twice in 2015 to block the consideration of the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have required employers to pay women equally to men.
(HR 189, 4/14/15, HR 200, 4/15/15)
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national security, ELECTION INTERFERENCE & cyberHACKING |
Tedra Cobb is supportive of the investigation into Russian election interference during the 2016 elections currently being conducted by Special Council Robert Mueller. |
Elise Stefanik was one of the 13 Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Devin Nunes (R-CA) (the infamous “Nunes Committee”) that attempted to undermine and damage the credibility of the investigation into Russian election interference currently being conducted by Special Council Robert Mueller. Last April, Stefanik voted along with the rest of the Republican members of the committee to release a partisan report which prematurely claimed that there was no collusion between Russia and Trump campaign officials in 2016.
Since the shutdown of the congressional committee into Russian interference, Stefanik has repeatedly claimed to be a “Russian hawk” who views Russia as an adversary. However, she recently supported a partisan Republican spending bill (HR 6147) that entirely removed election security funding from the federal budget, slashing $380 billion in grants to the states that were aimed at counteracting hacking and cyber attacks through upgrades to election equipment.
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