Anthony Brindisi

Well, it wasn’t until day 37 of the 117th Congress that we finally have a winner called in the last remaining house race for the 22nd district of New York, and unfortunately it did not go Anthony’s way. On February 8th, after a judge finally ruled in favor of his opponent Claudia Tenney, Anthony conceded via twitter as he wished his new predecessor well. If you’ve been following this race at all, then you know it has literally come down to single votes that were recounted by hand per the court orders, with neither candidate willing to concede until the bitter end. While it brings an end to a hard-fought race, and marks the departure of Anthony from our platform, it does however offer a stark reminder that every. Single. Vote. COUNTS.

More than 70 days after the election, Anthony’s race has yet to be called. A state supreme court judge just ordered to review more than 1,000 ballots that were previously rejected. Anthony is not wasting any time and he has already submitted his papers to run AGAIN in 2022. The race is essentially in a dead heat with his opponent, Caludia Tenney, ahead by 29 votes of the 311,695 cast. When you think your vote doesn’t count, remember to look back at this race.

As Anthony shared his statement in support of and then voted for impeachment, his November race against GOP opponent Claudia Tenney is STILL being argued over in the NY State Supreme Court. The last race to be called, there is yet another ridiculous development – Oneida County botched 2,400 legal voter registrations, rendering the individuals unable to vote on election day. While this is clearly not the biggest shock in institutional collapse this week, it’s still incredibly disappointing.

We swear, we’re not doing this on purpose… but we STILL can’t call the race for the 22nd district of New York! If you’ve been following Anthony, then you know he’s been trailing Claudia Tenney by a sliver—it’s come down to literally 19 individual votes—and a judge has now ordered a recount of a few thousand absentee ballots. But in the meantime, Anthony is still in the job and there’s still work to be done, and we’re happy to report that he secured the passage of his 11th bill. The Chuck Osier Burial Benefits Bill, honoring a late veteran from Anthony’s district, expands VA benefits for Veterans opting for non-traditional burials. The bill cleared both chambers of Congress in a bipartisan fashion and heads to the president’s desk for his signature into law.

Ever thought your vote didn’t matter? Take a look at Anthony’s race and think again. Over 318,000 people voted for the congressional seat and now the race will be decided based on 809 disputed ballots. Anthony’s Republican opponent, Claudia Tenney, is winning by 12 votes! The focus is now placed on these 809 absentee and affidavit ballots, but a judge has also asked to see 1,600 additional ballots for inspection. On Monday December 7th, the judge did not declare a winner, although Tenney’s lawyers asked him to. Instead he is ordering a recount of more votes. Every vote matters! Everyone buckle up, looks like we’re in for a long one here.

If you thought the Presidential race was a s**tshow, wait till you hear this. Anthony and his GOP challenger, Claudia Tenney, are in what might be the tightest race of the nation and the call has now come down to… sticky notes. Though Tenney currently leads by somewhere between 100-300 votes (which is also uncertain because a couple of counties haven’t even made their final ballot counts public), a handful of absentee ballots had been processed and sorted using sticky notes, which have now gone missing. The notes explained how the ballots were handled and whether or not they were counted. Yeesh. Now, these sticky note-less ballots have made their way to the state Supreme Court. If this isn’t a clusterf**k, we don’t know what is.

They’re still counting ballots but in the meantime, both Anthony and his Republican challenger Claudia Tenney have sent in their legal teams to, well, impound the absentee ballots? Let’s back up. Anthony beat Claudia in 2018 but she’s now come back with a vengeance, leading him in the vote count by more than 29,000 votes. BUT, there are still more than 60,000 absentee ballots that haven’t been counted. So Claudia filed suit asking the judge to seize these ballots and provide a list of everyone who received an absentee ballot so as to cross reference for fraud or irregularities prior to the count. Anthony filed a similar suit asking they begin counting right away. Incidentally, Anthony needs to win remaining ballots at a 2-to-1 pace in order to retain his seat.

Anthony just had two bills signed into law by President Trump, making them his 5th and 6th bills to be signed by the President. The first is bipartisan legislation to Expand Access to Suicide Prevention Coordinators and the second is to Improve Women Veterans Call Centers. 20 Veterans and Servicemembers die by suicide every day. The package includes Brindisi’s Access to Suicide Prevention Coordinators Act, which requires the VA to staff every VA Medical Facility with at least one Suicide Prevention Coordinator. Hopefully, these bills will help save more lives for high risk veterans.

We’re all well aware that Climate Change and the issue of the environment can draw some polarizing comments from elected officials. However, Anthony (recognized as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress), is trying to dispel that idea through his support of bipartisan legislation that would boost federal funding to address the maintenance backlog at national parks and public lands. He notes that despite division, there are moments of bipartisan agreement, but they often are overlooked by the national press. How many positive stories about bipartisan, environmental legislation have you been reading? Probably not very many… until now.