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Media Contact Information:

Sarah Meredith & Greg Bucking

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www.schohariedemocrats.org

Castelli Slams Stefanik For Scamming the Facts

We all exaggerate on occasion, but the credits claimed by Elise Stefanik for her work in Washington, DC are being called out as scams by her challenger in this November election,  Matt Castelli. This week, the Castelli campaign launched a page on their website that gets into the nitty gritty of what Stefanik has said, and compares that to her votes in the House of Representatives. An example given is her claim to support veterans, yet she voted against the Honoring our PACT Act, a bill that provides healthcare for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits; as well as the Ensuring Veterans' Smooth Transition Act, a bill that automatically enrolls veterans in the VA health care system; and the Guard and Reserve GI Bill Parity Act, a bill that expands education benefits to veterans.

The gloves are off, four weeks from the midterm elections. Castelli identifies support for police, health care, infrastructure, inflation reduction, and reducing costs of prescription drugs as specific areas in which the rhetoric used by his opponent differs widely from the actions she has taken in her role representing District 21. Castelli is not afraid of getting into the facts here, linking his statements to the bills themselves, and in some cases the local projects funded by the bills she voted against. He states that “Stefanik voted AGAINST the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 which brought substantial funding for infrastructure, small businesses, employers, and communities; voted AGAINST the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which brought in critical infrastructure funding to NY-21; and voted AGAINST appropriations in March 2022, which provided $35 million in funding for the Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC), and voted AGAINST the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which provided $150 million for the NBRC.”

As a former CIA agent tasked with ferreting out networks of disingenuous and dangerous groups in other countries, and tapped to direct the Counterterrorism part of the National Security Council (NSC) under both Obama and Trump, Castelli is no stranger to seeing through a scam. Offering himself as a moderate who puts “Country over Party,” Matt Castelli laughs off the Stefanik campaign accusations that “he hasn’t even voted in District 21 before” considering that all the folks in Schoharie County, among others who are voting this November in District 21, also fall into that category due to redistricting. 

Labeling Stefanik as primarily interested in promoting her career, Castelli said at a Town Hall in Cobleskill on October 5th that he would push for term limits for Congress, including a 4-term limit for himself should he gain the seat. Having cycled through posts in the CIA and NSC, Castelli believes that true representation requires the vitality that draws from new and emerging perspectives. He’s not worried about calling out Stefanik for saying one thing and doing another, it’s how he was raised in a two-party household that skewed towards health care and community service, where truth and dialogue were valued over self-promotion and hubris.
Link to the Castelli webpage: https://www.castelliforcongress.com/stefanik-scam