Campaign financials set the stage for the 2026 elections

DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 13

OPERATIVES GONNA OPERATE: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler isn’t facing a primary challenge for his seat — but he’s got his hands full with the one across the aisle anyway.

The GOP member of Congress spent the last few days meddling in the crowded Democratic primary for his seat — sending covert text messages that some say were designed to look like they’re from Democrats and deploying his campaign manager to challenge the signatures of a lefty Democratic candidate.

In the meantime, Lawler — who also serves as the Rockland County Republican Chair — held a rally Sunday to launch his own campaign.

“This is him. This is his deviousness,” Putnam County Democratic Chair Jennifer Colamonico said of Lawler’s strategy. “Just get in and stir shit up.”

Last week, a blast text message reached dozens of Democratic voters in NY-17 highlighting how one Democrat in the race was allegedly attacking the other by challenging their signatures to get on the ballot.

“Kathleen Kahng, a Conley campaign surrogate and former Putnam County legislative candidate, filed objections to the petitions of two Democrats competing in the June primary,” the message read, referencing Army vet Cait Conley, who is running for Lawler’s seat as a Democrat. “Not a concerned voter. A Conley insider. This isn’t democracy. It’s field-clearing.”

The text — which was sent out on the night of the Democratic debate in the district — included a picture of Conley and Kahng and the words “DC INSIDER KICKING LOCAL CANDIDATES OFF BALLOT.”

It didn’t say who it was from, but when recipients texted back “help,” a second text popped up: “Mike Lawler: For help, reach out to mike@lawlerforcongress.com. To opt-out, reply STOP.”

Lawler’s campaign declined to comment on the blast text. But it’s his latest barrage into the competitive Democratic primary as he’s likely looking at tougher odds at reelection than in 2024, after the Cook Political Report moved its rating of the district from “Leans Republican” to “toss-up.”

Lawler, a former campaign manager, lobbyist and political strategy firm founder, has long been recognized by Republicans and Democrats alike for his shrewd political abilities and tireless campaigning. Two years ago, he was one of the only House Republicans to win reelection in a district that voted for Kamala Harris for president by less than a one-point margin.

In that election, he was also accused by the Working Families Party of being the mastermind who encouraged a “ghost candidate” to run on the lefty third-party’s ballot line. The candidate — who was almost never seen in public — was running in an apparent attempt to siphon votes from former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones. Last year, on Lawler’s home turf, a similar strategy appears to have played out in races for town council.

This year, no mysterious candidates will be on the ballot for Congress in NY-17 from the Working Families Party, filings show. However, board of elections filings show Lawler’s campaign manager, Ciro Riccardi, filed preliminary paperwork to contest Democratic Rep. Effie Phillips-Staley’s ballot access signatures.

“Lawler is wasting everyone’s time with frivolous political games that will go nowhere,” Phillips-Staley spokesperson John Tomlin said in a statement. “Clearly Effie’s momentum is making him nervous and he’s terrified to face her in November.”

Riccardi responded in a statement saying that Phillips-Staley’s signatures were “rife with fraud and errors” but did not identify what those errors were. Team Lawler plans to file a “specific objection” by tomorrow, which will reveal more details.

He also said that Lawler “will be happy to face whoever survives this clown show in November."

“Democrats whining about our campaign defining our opponents are the same ones trying to rig their own primary,” Riccardi said. “We're not hiding anything.”

In the meantime, Lawler’s mass text about Democrats filing preliminary challenges to other candidates’ petitions appears to have successfully struck a nerve.

When Playbook reached out to Putnam County Democratic Vice Chair Kathleen Kahng — the person who objected to Democratic candidate Mike Sacks and John Cappello’s petitions — she referred Colamonico, the Putnam County chair, back to us for comment.

Colamonico told us her party won’t follow through with its initial objections to the two Democratic candidates’ petitions and dismissed the move as “regular order committee business, that's all.”

Conley’s campaign refused to answer questions about whether Kahng was acting on their behalf to challenge her opponents’ petitions. And Suzanne Berger, the Westchester Democratic chair, told Playbook she and the other Democratic county chairs talked to each other about “doing our due diligence” in advance of Colamonico making the challenge.

“The more candidates there are in a race, the less ability there is to focus on the candidates that are more likely to win the primary,” Berger said.

Sacks, whose petitions were challenged, didn’t like that.

“I find that deeply anti-Democratic,” Sacks said. “It goes further to the deep dissatisfaction that everyday Democratic voters have here with our party leadership. — Jason Beeferman

From the Capitol

SHED A TIER: The labor-led drive to overhaul the Tier 6 pension category is steamrolling through the state Capitol — with few officials disagreeing with powerful unions seeking to lower the retirement age and reduce employee contributions.

It’s a disheartening development for Republican Assemblymember Michael Fitzpatrick, a Long Island lawmaker who is perhaps the most vocal and rare opponent to changing the pension.

“You now, in a sense, have a professional Legislature,” Fitzpatrick said in an interview. “That’s right where the unions want us. You’re asking the legislators to vote against their own financial best interest. So who is going to say no to the alphabet soup of unions when, if I lose, I’m out of the pension system.”

Read more from POLITICO Pro’s Nick Reisman.

TRAVELING SEPARATELY: New York lawmakers passed a third temporary stopgap spending bill Monday afternoon as deadlock sets in over Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to overhaul the state’s car insurance laws.

The state budget is now more than two weeks late as the governor and Democratic-led Legislature remain at odds over a host of issues, including her push to weaken a 2019 climate law and opposition to raising taxes.

But the Hochul-backed car insurance proposals have emerged as a major sticking point — with lawmakers beginning to publicly grumble that the governor is not willing to negotiate on the subject.

“It’s a one-way street on the auto insurance issue,” Senate Deputy Leader Mike Gianaris said.

Read more from POLITICO Pro’s Bill Mahoney and Nick Reisman.

FROM CITY HALL

MAMDANI AND ZUCMAN'S TAX DAY: The deadline to file income taxes is Wednesday, and to commemorate the occasion, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, top French economist Gabriel Zucman and Nobel prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz will host a joint conference on “confronting global inequality" at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.

Mamdani and Zucman are both advocating for a 2 percent tax on the ultra-rich, but with some major differences. While Mamdani is calling for a 2 percent tax increase on New Yorkers earning more $1 million per year, Zucman wants rich households to pay at least 2 percent of the value of all their assets in taxes every year.

In 2024, during the Brazilian G20 presidency, Zucman pitched a global version of his tax, targeting the world’s billionaires. A national version of the “Zucman tax” dominated the French political debate last year, but it has not been implemented. Zucman, though, remains confident that sooner or later his dream will come true. Mamdani, Zucman and Stiglitz are expected to also spell out their ideas in a joint op-ed. — Giorgio Leali and Anthony Lattier

PRIDE FLAG FLIES: The Trump administration is agreeing to fly a pride flag at Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village after civil rights groups sued the federal government following the flag’s sudden removal in February.

“We fought the Trump administration — and we won,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said in a statement. “The Trump administration has blinked and backed down from its contemptuous attempt to erase American history.”

Earlier this year, the Trump administration quietly removed the flag after it issued a memo mandating that “only the U.S. Flag, flags of the [Department of the Interior], and the POW/MIA flag will be flown” by the National Park Service. Groups like The Gilbert Baker Foundation, Village Preservation and EQNY Fund Inc. sued to say the flag’s removal was an “arbitrary and capricious action.”

Today’s agreement settles that suit. — Jason Beeferman

IN OTHER NEWS

— MISS DIRECTION: Council Member Farrah Louis directed $450,000 to BHRAGS Home Care, a Brooklyn nonprofit currently under a federal corruption investigation. (Gothamist)

— PARK, MEET PLAZA: Mamdani is proposing to shut down a hazardous roadway at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza in the hopes of restoring the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch as a direct gateway to Prospect Park. (The New York Times)

— TOUGH CROWD: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler faced a hostile audience at his latest town hall in Putnam County, where residents pressed him on his support of the Trump administration and the ongoing war in Iran. (Lohud)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here