To the editor:

There is a fundamental issue that should come first in the election for New York’s 21st Congressional District. While the violence of Jan. 6 was a despicable assault on this country’s democracy and the peaceful transfer of power, it has often overshadowed the many other illegitimate, failed attempts to nullify the results of that election. These were attempts to overthrow the government from within through quasi-legal subversion.

Our Rep. Elise Stefanik was one of the 126 House members who signed an amicus brief supporting Texas v. Pennsylvania, for example, which was a “dangerous violation of federalism” (according to Republican congressman Chip Roy of Texas) that the Supreme Court refused to hear. Texas’ state attorney general was seeking to throw out all the votes of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

It was one of the most brazen attempts (out of dozens) to have courts, which is to say partisan judges, selectively disenfranchise millions of voters. The courts rejected virtually all of it. The worst of all was the “coup memo” conspiracy. Vice President Mike Pence refused to manufacture a constitutional crisis, which aimed to steal the election with the aid of fraudulent slates of electors. Rioters threatened to hang him for it.

Stefanik was one of the 147 House members who still voted to object to state electors later that night, over imaginary and non-existent voting irregularities. She also amplified false information about irregularities and fraud in several other states.

Stefanik eventually replaced Liz Cheney in the Republican House leadership, mostly by taking the wrong side on this, and by moving far to the right of our district. These are not forgivable tributes to party loyalty. Every single elected official who has supported electoral subversion deserves to be voted out of office.

It is not “conservative” in any meaningful sense of the word. Neither is defending Trump for apparently stealing highly sensitive national defense documents, severely mishandling them and then obstructing the Justice Department in trying to illegally keep them. Stefanik is now slandering federal law enforcers as “Russia hoax 2.0” for recovering our vital state secrets with a lawful search warrant.

Matt Castelli was moved to run for Congress because of what happened on Jan. 6. He is a centrist and former director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, who will not support radicals and their enablers in either party. Whether they say “defund the police” or “defund the FBI.” He actually cares about this district. Vote for him on the Moderate Party line in November, so Washington knows that all of this is wrong.

Robert Schnibbe

Saranac Lake