” The state of the competition around” for New York’s 17th congressional district “is great for those of us who want to protect democracy and protect LGBTQ+ right”, Mondaire Jones told the Washington Blade by telephone on Monday.
Next time, Jones is looking to recapture the House seat that he held from 2021 to 2023 before “unusual statewide events” charge him the Democratic candidacy and “lifelong political steal” GOP U. S. Rep. Mike Lawler eked out a win by just 1, 820 vote.
Confident in the state of his promotion looking ahead to the votes, having only out- raised Lawler along with all of his Political opponents, combined, in Q3, Jones is focused on the bets:
” If you believe, as many people do, that with Joe Manchin’s pension we are likely to drop the Senate”, began Jones, referring to the faded chances of Democrats retaining command of the lower room following the West Virginia president’s news of plans not to run in 2024.
” And if you believe most of the polling in the presidential race, which has shown Donald Trump well positioned to take back the White House”, he continued,” I am the only person standing in the way of Mike Lawler” and Republican allies “passing a national abortion ban, gutting Social Security and Medicare, rolling back LGBTQ+ rights, raising the price of prescription drugs, and exacerbating the uniquely American problem of mass shootings”.
” There are people in Congress and on television who say things like,’ if Joe Biden does n’t change his position on Israel, then the young people and people of color are not going to vote for him’ — rather than]talking ] about how irrational that is” or highlighting the Biden- Harris administration’s work on behalf of young people, from student loan forgiveness to the child tax credit and the largest climate action ever undertaken via the Inflation Reduction Act, Jones said.
And if reelected, he noted, Trump has promised to restore the Muslim restrictions imposed during his presidency and may increase it to include barring settlement of immigrants from Gaza.
Another indication of the harm done to voters: During a conversation on Veterans Day,” Donald Trump simply referred to his political opponents as vermin, which is an incantation of the frightening rhetoric used by people like Adolf Hitler to vilify an whole race of people”, Jones said.
” The fact that the New York Times treated like a mere deviation from the speeches Donald Trump generally gives as opposed to the more frightening harbinger of a fascist and an pro- Semite and a racist who has promised to destroy government against groups of people who he does not like is really a failure of the New York Times to get this moment, to grasp this moment in United history”.
Jones also bristles at how the internet have sometimes characterized specific congressional Democrats as reformers, citing, for instance, the whole league’s support for their new Speaker, U. S. Rep. Mike Johnson ( La. ), despite his serious opinions.
” I am concerned because the internet have given a platform to the little bunch of House Republicans who also purport to be moderate”, he said. ” Their treatment of these people who masquerade as reformers despite voting like extreme MAGA Republicans may give the impression to individuals that they are not part of the problem in the way that Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are”, Jones said, referring to the far- straight flame GOP U. S. members from Florida and Georgia.
These Democratic members include Lawler, who “did not have to voting with the extreme MAGA Republicans”, Jones said, but chose not to distinguish himself from the far- straight party of his conference “on concern after issue”, which is “because he himself is an fundamentalist”.
For example, he said, Lawler has” trafficked in weather for” and “mocked women and our Catholic communities here in the lower Hudson Valley” while voting” to reject a gun legislation intended to keep us safe from large shootings” and for an abortion ban “without exception for rape or incest”.
Most to support a seat in Congress in a region where Donald Trump was rejected by 10 positions, Jones noted.
” Citizens here in the 17th area want to protect a person’s right to an abortion”, he said. ” They want to safeguard LGBTQ+ freedom and ban assault weapons so that children can prevent getting gunned down in schools throughout the state”.
Jones continued,” Mike Lawler opposes these items. He even wants to cut Social Security and Medicare and raise the cost of prescription medications as evidenced by the fact that he has been working to understand the rules of the Inflation Reduction Act”.
Currently running on his report
Jones stated that” When I was elected in 2020, I became the first person of color to always reflect this area as well as a representative of the LGBTQ+ society.”
He was overwhelmingly elected as the most effective freshman legislator in Congress.
Jones stated,” I’ve got a record of truly delivering for this city.” For the lower Hudson Valley’s schools, cover, and healthcare, I brought in hundreds of millions of dollars. I negotiated the bipartisan infrastructure law’s passing. And it was my act with Jerry Nadler, a U.S. representative,D-N. Y. ] Despite the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse its law, the Respect for Marriage Act has made leaps in ensuring relationship justice for so many LGBTQ+ Americans across the nation.
” People want me back,” he continued, adding,” I have a track record of being an effective legislator.”
Jones expressed his admiration for both the LGBTQ+ members of Congress and the Equality Caucus. ” I will say that it is clear to me—as well as, I believe, many others who have contrasted the previous word with this one—that my voice is noticeably absent when it comes to issues pertaining to the LGBTQ community.
He stated that among other things, this would include justice, the Supreme Court, care, and medical equity, including access to PrEP treatment irrespective of one’s ability to pay for it.
In the Roosevelt Room in the flower of 2022, I told the president that even the discussion about student loan cancellation was a matter of LGBTQ justice and that it was crucial to do so by executive order.
Jones added that as the country’s first openly queer Black member of Congress, I would be leading the charge against the criminalization of gay people when I consider what has happened and what is happening worldwide, in some parts of Africa.
Jones, a lawyer who has experience working at the Justice Department, the international law firm Davis Polk, and as the Southern District of New York’s U.S. District Court judge, said,” I do n’t see anyone leading on that or on the Supreme Court.” He said,” It makes me sad, but I also know that’s why I have to fight tooth and nail to win back Congress and finish the work I started next time.”
According to Jones, the High Court “is itself things that poses an existential threat to the lives and livelihoods of the LGBTQ+ community.”
Jones supports court expansion as a solution to the issue, which he jointly proposed in legislation during the previous term with Nadler and U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga ). It might be” a crucial step to protecting the right of women to exercise their own healthcare right, whether it be pregnancy or any other medical choice they want to make,” as well as “protecting the fundamental freedoms for the LGBTQ+ area not to be discriminated against by company owners.”
According to Jones, the Shelby County v. Holder ruling from 2013, which “opened the doors to the thousands of racist voter suppression charges that we have seen introduced in lots of states across the country —and that, in many of those states, have become law,” the Supreme Court has also put American democracy in danger.
