On this date in both 2020, as well as 2021, ”Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled the current U.S. House Representative from New York’s 21st Congressional District, Elise Stefanik, who first won office for that seat back in the 2014 elections, when she was only 30 years old, setting a record at the time for being the youngest woman ever elected to Congress (since broken by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). Her district only slightly leaned Republican when she got elected, so for her first two terms in office, her voting record reflected that, as she was one of the more moderate members of the House GOP… but admittedly, that’s a low bar to clear these days.
Everything started to change as she did the political calculus as her district has veered right. And as the investigations into Donald Trump accepting foreign assistance in the 2016 election started closing in on them, as Rep. Stefanik was one of many members of the House Intelligence Committee who was following the lead of Congressman Devin Nunes, claiming there was “no evidence” of any crime (oh, there is, the Senate report explained it in detail, as did the Mueller report). By the time Trump had AGAIN solicited foreign assistance, this time for the 2020 election, Elise Stefanik saw an opportunity to take the spotlight, pretending she was being “silenced” because Adam Schiff enforced hearing rules and didn’t allow Devin Nunes to cede the remainder of his time to her, and virtually overnight reinventing herself as a “ride or die” Trump supporter.
Her role in the hearings was essential as Republican members of the committee like Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes went after witnesses like Fiona Hill and Marie Yovanovitch painting an ultimately sexist angle to the proceedings (and the GOP were already losing the support of suburban women), so the Republicans needed the optics of having Stefanik do all their heavy lifting to avoid the sort of spectacle that they set up during say, the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford less than a year earlier. And Stefanik made the most of her time during the day to act like Trump was the victim, before running on Fox News afterwards to try to rack up bonus points. One of the low lights was when she went as far as to claim Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff was “unfit” to be the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, before using all of the bad press she got from the mainstream media for the partisan sniping she made in Trump’s name during the impeachment hearings as an excuse to fundraise for 2020 and blow any potential GOP Primary challengers out of the water with ads.
And when we say she went “ride or die” with Trump, we meant it, as she was even given a chance to speak at the 2020 RNC where she continued insisting Trump never committed a crime when he withheld aid from Ukraine unless they announced an investigation into Hunter Biden, and framing the entire impeachment as “an attack on you”, where the “you” was “Republican voters”.
Elise Stefanik won re-election in 2020 with 59% of the vote, and went back to Washington, D.C. to continue her mad dash to the right.
- December 18th, 2019: Stefanik ignores her Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
- May 15th, 2020: Stefanik votes against the HEROES Act, refusing to support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- December 10th, 2020: Stefanik signs her name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
- January 7th, 2021: Elise Stefanik votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
- January 13th, 2021: Rep. Stefanik votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
- February 4th, 2021: Elise Stefanik votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because she wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online.
- February 25th, 2021: Stefanik votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
- March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Stefanik votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
- March 3rd, 2021: Elise Stefanik votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
- March 10th, 2021: Stefanik votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because she feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
- March 17th, 2021: Rep. Stefanik votes against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm.
- May 19th, 2021: Elise Stefanik votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
- November 5th, 2021: Elise Stefanik votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
- March 31st, 2022: Stefanik votes against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Elise Stefanik would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
- May 18th, 2022: Elise Stefanik is one of 192 Republicans who vote against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
- May 18th, 2022: Rep. Stefanik votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
- May 19th, 2022: Stefanik votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
- July 15th, 2022: Elise Stefanik votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcement by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.
- July 13th, 2022: Stefanik votes against the Honoring Our PACT Act, to provide healthcare to veterans affected by toxic burn pits while serving in the War on Terror that leave them more susceptible to forms of cancer.
- July 19th, 2022: Rep. Stefanik is one of 157 Republicans who vote against the “Respect for Marriage Act”, which would codify same sex marriage into law nationally.
- July 21st, 2022: Stefanik is one of 195 Republicans who vote against the Right to Contraception Act, which codified the right of Americans to have access to birth control.
Elise Stefanik’s rise in the GOP parallel’s the party’s overall descent into madness the past several years. As Congresswoman Liz Cheney “fell from grace” by daring to admit Trump legitimately lost the 2020 election and stoked the attack on the Capitol, the vacuum created by Cheney’s removal from GOP Conference chair was immediately filled by Stefanik, more than happy to tow the line of pandering to Trump’s ego again.
With her new position on House leadership, should the GOP ever retake control of the chamber while she’s in office, she’s already promising to “investigate the Biden crime family”, because… again, you accuse the other side of that which you are guilty (the Trump crime family and all their tax crimes and espionage and sexual assault and such). Like how she will deliberately lie and claim that the FBI’s search warrant of Mar-a-Lago was an abuse of power, and that the material Trump had was “unclassified”.
Stefanik has continued propagating Trump’s “Big Lie” that the election was stolen from him, six months after it was all over, and four months after the Capitol attack. She’s claiming it’s NANCY PELOSI who “bears responsibility” from Trump having incited a mob to storm the halls of Congress, and is currently palling up to Scott Presler, an Islamophobic conspiracy theorist who was present on the Capitol grounds on January 6th, calling it not an act of domestic terrorism, but a “civil rights” protest.
In May of 2022, she started openly promoting the white nationalist’s go-to rhetoric of “great replacement theory”, which if you needed any more indicator of where she’s at, that’s it.
There is no bottom to the extent she’s willing to lie, and the sooner she’s out of power, the better. That’s why we’re hoping Democratic candidate Matt Castelli, fresh off a primary win days ago, can call Stefanik out on being an extremist without any moral compass, and on her utter failure to support and defend American democracy. Suffice to say, that should Stefanik win, she pledged to only stay in office for four terms, a promise she’s currently twisting herself in knots to renege on, similar to how she has regarding her oath to the Constitution.
Let’s just hope the voters make that choice for her, eh?
One Year Ago, September 5th, 2021: Elise Stefanik (NY)… 2021 Update
Two Year Ago, September 5th, 2020: Elise Stefanik (NY)…Original Profile
Three Years Ago, September 5th, 2019: Antonio Sabato, Jr. (CA)
Four Years Ago, September 5th, 2018: Paul Nehlen (WI)…2018 Update
Five Years Ago, September 5th, 2017: Paul Nehlen (WI)… Original Profile
Six Years Ago, September 5th, 2016: Matthew Erickson (MN)
Seven Years Ago, September 5th, 2015: Michelle Bachmann (MN)… 2015 Update
Eight Years Ago, September 5th, 2014: Michelle Bachmann (MN)…Original Profile
