Monday, 30 Sep 2024

How New York’s Representatives Voted After the Capitol Riot

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It’s Friday.

Weather: Mostly sunny, with a high in the low 40s. Much the same over the weekend, but a bit chillier and gusty on Saturday.

Alternate-side parking: In effect until Jan. 18 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day).

When members of Congress were evacuated from the Capitol in Washington and sheltered in undisclosed locations Wednesday afternoon, New York’s 26 sitting representatives and two senators were among them.

Hours later, they returned, and Congress confirmed President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s win.

Four New York representatives were among the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election results, despite the lack of evidence for President Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud: Nicole Malliotakis, who represents Staten Island and part of South Brooklyn; Lee Zeldin from Long Island; Elise M. Stefanik, who represents the North Country; and Chris Jacobs from the Buffalo area. (Both of the state’s senators are Democrats who voted to certify the election results.)

This is how four members of the New York delegation voted and reacted to the violence:

Representative Ritchie Torres

Freshman Ritchie Torres, a Democrat who represents the Bronx, voted to certify the election results.

On Wednesday morning as he walked toward the Capitol, he took a video of pro-Trump protesters, referring to them as “saboteurs of democracy.” At 1:25 p.m., he said he was ordered to evacuate the Cannon building, where his office is.

“Life never unfolds quite as you imagine it,” he said on Twitter. “I never thought, as a newly sworn-in Congressman, that I would live through a violent assault on the US Capitol during an Electoral College vote count.”

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, voted to certify the election after she was “barricaded in for several hours” during the riot.

She quickly called for the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and backed articles of impeachment to remove the president, which were drafted by Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. New York representatives Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones have called for impeachment as well.

Representative Nicole Malliotakis

Ms. Malliotakis, a staunch supporter of the president, voted against certifying the election, even though Mr. Trump’s claims of malfeasance have been repeatedly rejected by numerous state officials of both parties, as well as by dozens of judges, across the country.

She is a freshman Republican in the House of Representatives who defeated the incumbent Democrat Max Rose in November. Her district is the most conservative in New York City.

During the melee, Capitol Police brought Ms. Malliotakis and her staff to a secure location, she tweeted. She condemned the violence as “un-American” and called for rioters to be prosecuted.

“Yesterday was my third day, and I feel like I’ve been here for three years, quite frankly,” she said on Fox News.

Representative Lee Zeldin

Mr. Zeldin, a conservative Republican who represents Long Island, voted to overturn the election results and said many of his constituents were “demanding that I voice their objections here today.”

“This debate is necessary because rogue election officials, secretaries of state and courts circumvented state election laws,” he said while speaking on the floor of the House.

Judges and officials of both parties in contested swing states have strenuously disagreed, calling such assertions unfounded and saying that the laws were followed.

Before speaking, Mr. Zeldin pleaded with protesters to “listen to our great Capitol Police who need to get control immediately.”

[Read more: Protesters in New York urged the ouster of President Trump.]

From The Times

What Schumer’s Rise to Senate Majority Leader Means for New York

Woman Who Tackled Black Teenager at SoHo Hotel Is Arrested

Preserving New York’s Ties to the Underground Railroad

Jean Valentine, Minimalist Poet With Maximum Punch, Dies at 86

Want more news? Check out our full coverage.

The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.

What we’re reading

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is asking for more police in subways after a surge in attacks on workers and riders. [New York Post]

New York City’s MetroCards will be replaced by OMNY in two years. [Time Out]

A gunman tore off a woman’s necklace when she refused to open the cash register at a Queens restaurant. [Daily News]

And finally: Your virtual social weekend

The Times’s Melissa Guerrero writes:

Although many performance spaces, museums and community centers are closed, people are finding creative ways to connect through virtual events and programs. Here are suggestions for maintaining a New York social life this weekend while keeping a safe distance from other people.

‘Astronomy Online: Saturn’

On Friday at 1 p.m., take a digital journey to Saturn with Denton Ebel, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History, and Marina Gemma, a planetary scientist. You’ll learn about NASA’s Cassini mission and why planets form a disk around the sun.

Watch the free livestream on the museum’s YouTube channel.

The Long Island estates that inspired ‘The Great Gatsby’

Attend a webinar, led by the historian Gary Lawrance, about estates and mansions on Long Island’s “Gold Coast” on Friday at 8 p.m. He’ll discuss the history of the North Shore and show archival photos of properties that are said to have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”

Purchase a ticket ($10) on the event page.

Small Kitchens’

On Sunday at 2:30 p.m., watch a documentary about the physical connections and social contrasts of kitchen work between two food spaces — a Nepalese restaurant and a Mexican food cart — on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. Attendees can participate in a post-screening Q. and A. with the filmmaker, Seth Fein.

R.S.V.P. on the event page. Free, but donations are encouraged.

It’s Friday — you made it through the week.

Metropolitan Diary: Curbside reunion

Dear Diary:

I recently went for a run and ended up in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Just before turning to head home, I was stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a large piece of wood leaning against a bunch of trash bags. It was garbage night, but until this point I hadn’t noticed the rubbish I was passing as I ran.

This was not just any piece of wood. It was my desk.

My father had built the desk for me in 2010 when I moved into what had been my second apartment, in Chelsea. I had used it for six years before selling it to a woman on Craigslist. I was moving to Brooklyn, and it wouldn’t work for me in my new apartment.

Now, I thought, after four years it must not work for her anymore either.

After 10 years in existence, the desk — its wooden top separated from it rusted-pipe legs, which were nearby encased in clear recycling bags — was finally at the end of its life.

I felt myself welling up. I FaceTimed my father and pointed my phone at the piece of wood.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked.

He did, immediately.

I said goodbye to the desk one last time, wiped away my tears and continued my run home.

— Jennifer Fragale

New York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.

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