CD-17: Democrats line up for chance to flip House seat

By MARTIN WILBUR

Affordability for local families is the key issue for most of the seven Democrats vying to capture their party’s nomination for this year’s 17th Congressional District election and face two-term Republican Congressman Mike Lawler in November.

The Democratic field for the June 23 primary features three current elected officials, two candidates who served in the military, another with a law enforcement background and an attorney who has covered law and politics in the media. All are from communities in Westchester and Rockland counties. The district also includes Putnam County and a portion of southern Dutchess.

Candidates’ nominating petitions can begin circulating Feb. 24, with a filing deadline of April 6.

The Recorder reached out to Lawler’s campaign for comment on the Democrats’ campaigns, but did not hear back. 

Following is a rundown of the candidates’ backgrounds and campaign platforms.

John Cappello

Cappello, a longtime Suffern resident, is a former Air Force pilot who also taught political science at the Air Force Academy and had multiple assignments abroad on behalf of the U.S. government, including the Military Liaison Office in Kyiv as an Air Force attache and at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.

Citing the support of several teachers who helped him achieve his dream of becoming a pilot, Capello said serving his community to make sure future generations have an equal opportunity was one major factor for his run for Congress. Another was to prevent the legislative branch to shirk its responsibility to govern and work together to achieve results, like the Founding Fathers intended, he said.

“They expected each branch to guard its power jealously, and that tension leads to checks and balances,” Cappello said. “But they never expected, I don’t believe, they never expected for one branch to abdicate its power, to give it up as this Congress has, and we need to restore balance and accountability, and that’s a big part of my message.”

The most common feedback from district residents has been the cost of living, especially the need for help with the price of housing and healthcare, Cappello said. People are also exhausted from being hit with a new crisis every day, whether it be Venezuela, armed federal agents in Minneapolis or threats of annexing Greenland, he said.

Cappello said his skills of having worked abroad and within the government gives him a different perspective than the other candidates in the field.

“I’ve worked at all levels of government, been a diplomat, worked at international levels and formed partnerships to solve problems, and achieved hard-earned results at these different levels, and I think that’s the type of American that needs to be brought to bear for the problems that we face,” he said. 

Through the third quarter of 2025, Cappello’s campaign had raised just over $24,000 with nearly $20,000 on hand, according to the Federal Election Commission. The deadline for filing the 2025 year-end campaign finances is Jan. 31.

Lawler’s campaign has already filed 2025 year-end numbers. It reported $3.5 million on hand and $5.2 million raised so far.

Peter Chatzky

A 20-year Briarcliff Manor resident, Chatzky has served five two-year terms on the Village Board, and with his 40 years’ experience of managing his own financial software company, believes his business skills and having served as a local official would benefit those living in the district if elected to Congress. 

The urgency of the moment that the U.S. faces is a major reason he jumped into the race, prompting Chatzky to say “I don’t know if the American federal government has ever been in worse shape.”

He cites as priorities affordability and the need to bring housing prices under control by incentivizing the construction of a greater variety of units. Chatzky said he would also focus on local issues that are important to district residents, including education and better services. 

Chatzky chided President Trump’s America First agenda, which has the administration involved in crises around the world while viewing Americans who need help, whether it be Medicaid, food stamps or other services, “as a drain on the financial security of our country.”

“I would be more focused on making sure my district is prospering and basic needs are taken care of,” Chatzky said.

Chatzky would also like to see campaign reform so representatives spend more time legislating than running for office. He has raised eyebrows by preparing to pour in as much as $5 million of his own money to compete for the seat, denying it is hypocritical or that he is trying to buy his way to Congress. 

He said with other candidates in the race anointed as early leaders, mainly because they announced their candidacies earlier, forced him to raise his profile in an expensive media market.

“It shows my commitment,” Chatzky said. “I’m surprised that gets translated to buying a seat. I’m certainly not going door to door handing out hundred-dollar bills. It was to get my name out there.”

Chatzky also eschews labels, but said it doesn’t bother him to be labeled a progressive.

“Why would you be against progress?” he asked.

Cait Conley

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Conley felt a call to serve the nation while still in high school. She was accepted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, graduating in the top 2% of her class, before earning graduate degrees at Harvard and MIT. Conley, of Ossining, was on active duty 16 years.

She said her decision to enter the race in March 2025 was centered on how President Trump and Lawler have, in her view,  failed the people of the district and nation. The American dream, she said, seems to be slipping away from increasing numbers of people who can’t afford a downpayment on a home or are getting hurt by the cost of healthcare and groceries.

“They deserve a government that’s going to fight and deliver for them and that is not Mike Lawler,” Conley said.

Lawler’s support for the One Big Beautiful Bill last year, which provided tax cuts to the wealthy and failed to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, illustrated a failure on the incumbent’s part to address the needs of his constituents, Conley said. She characterized Lawler’s recent vote to extend the subsidies as too little and too late.

As a veteran, Conley said she is worried about the destabilizing effect of the administration’s priorities internationally, potentially putting the nation’s military in danger.

“What we are seeing out of this administration is a reckless disregard for what is in America’s long-term best interests, and it’s unacceptable, and Mike Lawler has been complicit in all of it,” Conley said. 

Conley said the district’s next representative needs to rebuild trust with the public in order to have them have faith in government again. Her backstory also makes her stand out from the rest of the field.

“I think that is a unique background that I bring that others don’t, and when you look at what it’s going to take to win New York’s 17th, the person who’s going to beat Mike Lawler is the one who can put the whole district in play, and I believe I can do that,” Conley said.

She has collected multiple local endorsements, including from the Lewisboro Democratic Committee and Pound Ridge Supervisor Kevin Hansan, and has raised about $1.9 million through the end of 2025, her campaign disclosed, making her one of the frontrunners in the race to some political observers.

Beth Davidson

Davidson currently is a Rockland County legislator, and before winning her seat, served on the Nyack Board of Education. She said she is the type of leader that has worked well with many officials and constituents, including Republican County Executive Ed Day, while delivering on issues that people care most about.

“The world is spinning out of control, people are looking for leaders that are really grounded in their community, and I have lived here for 20 years,” said Davidson, of Clarkstown. “I’m a working mom, I’m putting my kids through public schools, I know what it means to pay taxes here, but also to serve the community on nonprofit boards, on the school board and then the County Legislature to not only win my seat but also as part of a slate to win the first Democratic supermajority in Rockland County history.”

For Davidson, a freelance writer and political consultant, addressing the crushing cost of living is her biggest priority. The effects that President Trump’s tariffs have had on small businesses and residents must be addressed, and the cuts that will soon arrive for families that rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits must be met with resistance to relieve the burden, Davidson said.

During her two years on the county legislature, she has also worked with her colleagues to pass county gun legislation, earning the endorsement of Moms Demand Action and being a champion of reproductive rights and education that will play well in the election. 

“This is a district that cares about reproductive rights, that cares about the environment, that cares about public education,  that cares about our immigrant neighbors, and on every one of these issues, I am ready to go toe-to-toe with Mike Lawler, on a record that reflects the values of this district,” Davidson said.

She also anticipates that her Rockland roots will serve her well in a district that accounts for roughly 40% of the primary and general election electorate, an advantage she has over most of the field. She has also garnered about 250 endorsements from elected officials and a wide range of organizations.

As  of Sept. 30, Davidson had raised $1,226,000, the second most among Democrats at that time, helping to stamp her as a main contender.

Effie Phillips-Staley

Phillips-Staley is the third current elected official running for the nomination, serving as a trustee on the Tarrytown Village Board. Her professional background has been as an executive for nonprofit organizations. 

Along with addressing cost of living, Phillips-Staley said the Democratic Party must do a better job serving certain constituencies. That is one of the reasons why the Democrats fell short in the 2024 elections, she said.

“I decided I really had to get in (the race) because my belief is that the Democratic Party has not been sufficiently representative of all the communities that it seeks to serve, and the Hispanic community is just one of them and the working-class community is another,” said Phillips-Staley, whose mother and her family escaped El Salvador during its civil war.

She said making housing more affordable and protecting the climate, finding affordable healthcare solutions and focusing on local issues is all on her agenda. Phillips-Staley would also fight for comprehensive immigration reform.

“We have completely lost our humanity and our empathy. We are growing a system that empowers, like with ICE, to be dismantling norms about how laws are observed,” Phillips-Staley said. “It’s deeply troubling.”

Phillips-Staley said her grassroots campaign has been aiming to motivate the “low-propensity voter” to bolster her support. Federal Election Commission records show that she has raised $245,000 through Sept. 30.

“We have to win this race,” she said of Democrats. “It is existential for our district and our nation, and it’s my belief, we won’t do it with the same Democratic playbook,” she said.

Mike Sacks

Sacks does not mince words about the current state of the country. An attorney who earned his law degree from Georgetown before covering the U.S. Supreme Court for The Huffington Post and the law and politics for the Channel 5 Fox affiliate in New York, the Croton-on-Hudson resident is worried about the nation’s future.

His coverage and commentary of the attempted Jan. 6 overturning of the January 2020 presidential election angered him, and when Lawler won reelection in 2024, Sacks said he could no longer be a bystander.

“I thought that my background in the media and the law would be the exact experience necessary to fight what I expected and has come to be a fascist regime on the battlefield that it best knows — media and the law,” Sacks said.

The next Congress will have a daunting challenge in having to juggle multiple issues and reverse the damage that is being done to citizens and the nation, he said. “All of the affordability issues must be addressed, including affordable health care, housing, restoring the nation’s standing internationally and cracking down on the abuses.”

He said Lawler’s loyalty to the Trump administration, where anyone who needs a helping hand or has a different opinion is viewed as unAmerican, must be stopped before the U.S. loses its democracy.

“These are the same people who would have opposed FDR’s New Deal. These are the same people who would be opposed to LBJ’s Great Society, which included Medicaid and Medicare,” Sacks said. “But they think that the rest of us in this community are still buying the bulls--- that has been sold to the American public for several decades, for four decades now, and have failed to recognize that they have enabled an extreme right wing fascist regime.”

Sacks said while he would be willing to work in a bipartisan manner, if the Democrats win back Congress later this year, it should move as swiftly as possible to impose its agenda and priorities.

He raised just over $247,000 through the third quarter last year, according to election filings.

John Sullivan

A former FBI security analyst, Sullivan left the bureau last year after 17 years, dismayed that about 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants were pardoned by President Trump after he had worked on the matter for the bureau. 

Sullivan said many of the administration’s policies, with strong support from Lawler, are making the country less safe. Many potential voters that he’s listened to are worried about how they will be able to afford to live, their healthcare and the anti-immigration rhetoric that has gone after documented people and even citizens, not only criminals as had been promised, he said.

Sullivan, who is openly gay, intends to focus on affordability, safety and accountability.

“Many of these issues are at the forefront of constituents’ minds in the district,” said Sullivan, who raised $401,000 for his campaign as of Sept. 30. “It’s not about ‘this is what I believe in and I’m going to do it’. It’s ‘look at what I’ve done for the last 17 years and how I will continue doing that work.’”

Congress must exercise its constitutional role to decide on tariffs or to authorize military action, the candidate stated.  He also said the Affordable Care Act should be updated now that it has been more than 15 years since its enactment to address affordability and changes in healthcare. Medicare for All should also be considered as one public option, he said.

Comprehensive immigration reform has to be explored that will provide a pathway to citizenship for those who have been contributing members of society as well as DACA recipients, Sullivan said.

If successful in his bid, Sullivan does not intend to make serving in Congress a career, but as a way to serve his community and country for a finite period of time.

“I am running to do all the good that I can and after a period of time, step back, live under the laws that I pass and make room for the next person,” Sullivan said.

Martin Wilbur has more than 30 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, and previously served as editor-in-chief of The Examiner.