Congressman Latimer plunges into the unfolding situation in Washington

Westchester’s George Latimer, barely a month into his new role as U.S. Congressman representing New York’s 16th Congressional District has joined with his colleagues to fight the actions underway by the Trump Administration that are designed to fundamentally change the U.S. government and consolidate power in President Trump.

“As a new member of the House and as the minority some of the levers that might be available aren’t available to us,” Latimer told the Business Journal. “There are efforts being made by the House minority to bring court cases to deal most recently with this Elon Musk overreach and his ability given by the president to start to decommission different departments. We believe that’s not legal. We believe that a court of law will suspend the actions in the same way that they suspended the illegal holding back of (government financial) grants from last week which the president did by executive order.”

Latimer joined 153 House Democrats in sending a letter to the Trump Administration to protest President Trump having issued the an executive order on his first day in office that was intended to pause  disbursements including money from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Latimer said that the Democrats working on a lawsuit regarding the freeze in federal funding do not know what would happen if it goes to the Supreme Court where the conservative majority has ruled favorably for President Trump in the past. He also said that they are coordinating with various state attorneys general who have standing on various issues and that the attorneys general are fighting the issue of Trump changing the Constitution to remove Birthright Citizenship.

“We believe we’re going to win that one because clearly the executive order conflicts with the 14th Amendment. In the case of the tariffs, we’re making a strong case that to take a blunt tool like a tariff and to use it for political threatening is a reckless thing to do,” Latimer said. “You’re taking our allies, people we need like Canada and Mexico, and threatening them in a way that will create bad will and a lack of cooperation in the days to come.”

Latimer recalled that it was Republican President Ronald Reagan who said that it was foolish for the U.S. to use tariffs to try to punish its allies. He said that when he has returned to Westchester from Washington for weekends and visited with constituents they expressed major concerns about tariffs.

“I think the Republican Party has strayed a lot from the Reagan days,” Latimer said. “The hidden nature of a tariff is that it raises the prices. I think this is a big bluster by President Trump, trying to throw his weight around and show that he’s a big man in the first couple of weeks. In a case like this if the American public will wind up paying more for their products it’s just the exact opposite of what he campaigned on, which was trying to make things more affordable.”

Latimer expressed a view that there is hypocrisy at work when it comes to the tariffs issue.

“You win office by saying you can do a better job and immediately treat the economy as if it’s unimportant because you’re trying to make your geopolitical gains,” Latimer said. “We’re trying to make that case as best we can.”

Latimer expressed a concern that the conflict and vindictiveness emerging in Washington might interfere with his ability to work across the political party aisle, which has been one of the hallmarks of his past service in government in New York state and Westchester.

He did already reach across the isle and with Republican Congressman Mark Alford of Missouri and Democratic Congressman Kweisi Mfume of Maryland introduced the Transparency and Predictability in Small Business Opportunities Act, a bipartisan initiative to improve transparency and accountability in the bidding process for small and minority/women-owned businesses aiming to provide their products or services to the federal government.

“Now I’m walking into a government that’s been radicalized.,” Latimer said. “It’s chaos because one man believes that this is his way to basically deconstruct the American political system. I think many of the Republicans here in the House and Senate are deathly afraid of Donald Trump. He’s wildly popular with the Republican base and he has more than once threatened various Republicans he’ll run primaries against them if they don’t do exactly what he says. I had a lot of influence in the Democratic Party in Westchester County but I never once threatened a Democratic legislator with extinction if they didn’t do what I told them to do.”

Latimer said that people need to be “pressing the other side of the aisle and holding them accountable for the positions that they’re taking because it’s only through the political process they will feel the pressure to change their position.”