Local Democrats Fire Up Their Base at a Patriots Park Rally

By Barrett Seaman–

No one throws a more energetic political rally than big labor, and the event held in Tarrytown’s Patriots Park on Saturday, the Ides of March, was no exception. The sprawling healthcare workers union, 1199 SEIU, along with CWA (Communications Workers of America) and various local chapters of Indivisible, the progressive grassroots organization, staged a boisterous protest against the Trump administration’s draconian budget cuts.

Organizers made full use of call-and-response to engage the crowd. (Examples: Congressman Lawler “talks like a moderate …votes like a MAGA” and “When they say cutbacks…we say fight back”).

Labor, as they say, was “in the house,” but so were a number of local elected officials and those who aspire to be. Many spoke but the names heard most often were those of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the target of the hour, 17^th District Republican Congressman Mike Lawler.

One Democrat who has already filed to challenge Lawler is current Rockland County legislator Beth Davidson. A two-term school board member, mother of two and an activist in her hometown of Nyack, Davidson introduced herself to the Patriots Park crowd as the “proud child of a union card carrying public school teacher and U.S. Navy veteran.” She called Lawyer “a rubber stamp for Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” saying “Lawler is responsible for robbing 233,000 in 17^th District of their health care.”

Other speakers lasered in on the Republican-crafted budget resolution as the source of $880 billion cuts that would be especially hard on Medicaid recipients, arguably the most economically vulnerable citizens.

Lawler has defended the spending bill, which he voted for, saying in news interviews and mailings that “the word ‘Medicaid’ does not even appear in the bill.” Democrats don’t buy that, claiming that, as Davidson said Saturday, “It’s impossible to make that level of cuts without going after entitlement programs,” adding, “Elon Musk himself has said that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are entitlements that we have to start looking at getting rid of.”

During her turn at the mike Saturday, Davidson labeled Lawler ”out of touch, out of sight and running out of time as our Congressman”. She has the endorsement of Lawler’s Democratic predecessor, Mondaire Jones, who lost to Lawler last November, in part because Lawler took Rockland County with more than 80,000 votes. Jones recognizes the need for Democrats to win Rockland back and believes the 20-year Nyack resident can do that.

Davidson is not the only candidate to have filed to challenge Lawler. Also registered is Jessica Reinmann of Chappaqua, the CEO of 914CARES, the antipoverty nonprofit based in Armonk. Two other prospective candidates are Neal Zuckerman, the Putnam County representative on the MTA board, and Effie Phillips-Staley, a member of Tarrytown’s Board of Trustees and a board member of Hispanic Democrats of Westchester. When asked by the Mid-Hudson News if he planned to run, Zuckerman sidestepped by saying that “2026 is a very, very long time from now.”

Not mincing her words, Phillips-Staley gave a rousing speech Saturday, gesturing to the statue of the militiaman behind her—part of a trio of patriots who apprehended British spy John Andre thus uncovering Benedict Arnold’s 1780 plot to betray West Point to the British—as saviors of American democracy. Democrats in 2025, she asserted, were their modern-day equivalent, fighting to save the country from a Trump autocracy. If the current climate of what Davidson called “chaos and cruelty” continues, there may well be more signing up to challenge Mike Lawler in what has become a toss-up district.

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