How to Kick a Former Utility Lobbyist Out of Congress

In New York, Cait Conley is challenging Republican incumbent Mike Lawler.

Cait Conley is running to challenge Republican incumbent Mike Lawler (NY-17), a former utility lobbyist whose numerous pay-to-play deals landed him on End Citizens United’s list of Most Corrupt Politicians of 2026.

Given all the grift this Congress enables, it’s tough to get on ECU’s Most Corrupt list, but Lawler was a shoo-in: Beyond being a former lobbyist, he’s accepted over $1 million in corporate PAC money since his first election in 2022; he’s taken over $1.1 million from individuals and PACs related to the financial services industry he’s supposed to be overseeing; and he has funneled at least $500,000 in campaign committee funds to a company he owned.

Cait Conley on the other hand is a West Point graduate and a U.S. Army veteran who completed six overseas deployments. She draws a clear connection between her working-class upbringing and her commitment to refusing to take corporate PAC donations. She is centering her campaign on meaningful campaign finance reforms that return political power back to where it belongs: with the American people.

Democracy News: Why are you running for Congress?

Conley: I’ve spent my life committed to serving and fighting for this country. I do love this country, and I do believe that our best days are still ahead of us if we get the right people in government.

Growing up, there was the idea that if you work hard, you can get ahead. Now, you see people working harder than ever, and they’re on this hamster wheel where no matter how hard they run, they don’t get anywhere. It shows you that the system really is rigged against working people.

I went to West Point and then served as an active-duty army officer for 16 years. I’ve done six deployments overseas. Then I served as director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff, helping keep our homeland safe. So, I’ve spent the last two plus decades fighting to make sure our country is safe and secure, and fighting for our democracy.

Somehow during that time, politicians in Washington decided to stop fighting for the people and our country and started fighting for themselves and their special interest groups and corporations. That corruption has led to the government dysfunction that has fueled this affordability crisis. And if we’re going to change that, we need to change the people in Washington.

Democracy News: When you’re out in your district, what do you hear from people about corruption and how it’s affecting their lives?

Conley: People don’t believe that the politicians who got us into this mess are going to get us out of it. You know, take our own representative, Mike Lawler, who’s the seminal example of Washington corruption. He was a utility lobbyist and political consultant before becoming a politician. This guy has funneled half a million dollars to his own former company’s consulting firm.

Energy prices are rising. Instead of fighting for the people of his district, Lawler has been loyal to his utility buddies. Utility rates here in New York State have gone up over 50% since he’s taken office. You see cost of living increases across the board.

It’s the same thing with healthcare. We are watching as premiums are crushing families here in the district, and instead of holding health insurance companies accountable, Mike Lawler has taken major donations from health insurance companies and Big Pharma over the years. He’s taken over a million dollars from corporate PACs. It’s no wonder this man has not fought for the people and has not solved these problems. He’s in the pocket of these corporations.

What’s incredibly frustrating is that this guy will come out and try to claim he’s this bipartisan moderate, but the reality is that Lawler has voted with Donald Trump 100% of the time. Elon Musk donated $1.7 million to support Lawler.

So, he’s exactly who we’re talking about when we talk about politicians being propped up by dark money. Corrupt politicians like Lawler are putting up this smokescreen of BS. But you know what, that smokescreen is dissipating. People are seeing through it because they’re living with the realities of those consequences. Life has gotten harder, not better.

Democracy News: Utility companies often support data center construction. Is that an issue in NY-17?

Conley: One hundred percent. In Mike Lawler’s home county of Rockland County five data centers have been built in recent years.

After winning our primary, one of the first things we did was attend a town planning board meeting and fight the approval of more proposed data centers. My position is: If data centers are going to be built, they need to be a net positive for the community, and anything short of that is unacceptable. This goes back to how we have corruption at every level, people in charge looking out for corporate interests instead of communities on every level, and it’s fundamentally wrong.

Instead of supporting the people, Lawler is literally attacking the people who are trying to hold these corporations to account. This has happened on his watch, and he doesn’t get to run from that anymore. In this cycle, we’re holding his ass accountable.

Democracy News: What reforms do you want to focus on when elected to Congress?

Conley: On Day One we have to tackle corruption. We have to pass legislation that addresses how elected officials are using their positions to enrich themselves instead of looking out for their constituents. That means banning stock trading for Congressional members, their spouses, for the president, vice president, political appointees from the executive branch, to make sure that people who are there are doing the job and looking out for this country, not their stock portfolios.

Second, we have got to deliver for working families who desperately deserve results. There are a few things we need to do. One, when it comes to pathways to middle class America and economic success and stability, we’ve got to recognize that the cost of higher education is crippling people with lifelong student debt, and we’ve got to do a more aggressive job of tackling that.

We should cap interest rates for federal student loans. We need to expand our investment in other pathways to the middle class that aren’t just four-year colleges. In New York, we have the BOCES program, where technical trade schools and training programs give kids tremendous pathways to careers in everything from plumbing to nursing. We need to be investing and expanding programs like that. And we need to address the housing crisis. We need to create loan programs for Americans in public service, helping them to buy homes. And we need to reign in monopoly utility companies.

We also need to make substantive structural reforms to ensure that we root out this corruption. That means, yes, banning stock trading for members of Congress and their spouses, and the president, vice president, White House political appointees. It also means enacting term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court because you need people in government who are focusing on the privilege of the time they’re given, and not the next 10 re-election cycles.

Democracy News: With everything that’s happening, how are you coping?

Conley: It helps to recognize that we are living in a moment that is truly an incredible opportunity to fight for this country, our democracy, and our future. You know, this is our 250th anniversary, and this year should remind us that America and the pursuit of this more perfect union didn’t happen because it’s easy, but because generation after generation has answered the call, even in the darkest of hours, to fight for America. And now it’s our turn.

No one else is coming to save us. This is our fight. We are the cavalry, and our country needs us to answer the call again. We have to embrace the opportunity to fight for something bigger than ourselves.

You can learn more about Cait Conley here.