We are done showing up unconditionally.
We are young voters, we are organizers, we are neighbors, we are residents of New York's 17th Congressional District.
We are done being told our values are inconvenient. We are done being asked to deliver our votes and our labor to candidates who treat us as a resource to be extracted every two years and ignored in between.
We live in Cold Spring and Garrison, in Ossining and Peekskill, in Spring Valley and Suffern, in Carmel and Brewster.
We are renters who can't afford to stay in the communities we grew up in. We are students carrying debt that was supposed to buy us a future.
We are people who watched our government fund a genocide and then were told by our own party leaders not to believe our eyes.
Every two years we show up. Every two years the party takes us for granted and hands us candidates chosen by donors we didn't elect, representing values we don't share.
Sign the pledge. Make the demands. Refuse to be taken for granted.
We are not accountable to the Democratic Party.
We are accountable to our neighbors across the Hudson Valley being kidnapped and thrown into detention centers for the minor offense of seeking a better life.
We are accountable to the residents of our communities resisting AI data centers being forced into their neighborhoods without their consent.
We are accountable to the earth itself, against which the United States military is one of the leading forces of destruction on the planet.
We are accountable to Palestinian parents collecting pieces of their children in bags after they have been blown to bits by American-made weapons.
Sign the pledge. Make the demands. Refuse to be taken for granted.
Mike Lawler only cares about his own access to power.
We are no fans of Mike Lawler’s. In fact, we might just be his biggest haters.
Mr. Lawler consistently rubber stamps Donald Trump’s insane agenda, making space for his big beautiful tax breaks by slashing Medicaid and food assistance.
Mr. Lawler constantly defends the kidnapping of neighbors and the murders of nonviolent Americans exercising their constitutional rights by observing and recording federal agents roaming their neighborhoods seeking victims.
Mr. Lawler has done nothing for the working families of this district. He is a con man of the shiniest-suited order who cares nothing for the people of NY-17.
Sign the pledge. Make the demands. Refuse to be taken for granted.
Cait Conley needs our votes.
There are approximately 150,000 to 170,000 registered voters under 50 in NY-17.
Only 9% of Americans aged 18 to 34 approve of Israel's military actions in Gaza.
Among those aged 35 to 54, that number rises to just 29%. 84% of Americans favor an immediate ceasefire.
60% of Americans disapprove of the way ICE is doing its job—including 64% of independents and 89% of Democrats.
And now that the United States has bombed Iran, gas prices are surging, and the threat of a wider regional war (and what comes after) hangs over every family in this district and every young person wondering what their future looks like.
This is what the military industrial complex produces. This is what blank checks and unconditional alliances produce. This is what happens when our elected representatives treat war as a foreign policy tool rather than a human catastrophe.
Sign the pledge. Make the demands. Refuse to be taken for granted.
These are not fringe positions.
These are majority positions. These are winning positions.
The moment is not coming. It is here. Now is the time to demand what we want. Now is the time to fight for the world we want to see.
In 2022, Mr. Lawler won his first race by just 1,800 votes. In 2024, he expanded that margin, but only because Democrats ran a candidate similar Ms. Conley, whose cautious, unprincipled campaign gave the base nothing to show up for. Mr. Lawler won in 2024 not because the district moved right, but because Democratic turnout collapsed under the weight of an uninspiring nominee who refused to take an ethical stand on the genocide happening right before our eyes.
Those votes did not disappear. We are sitting right here, waiting to be activated if the candidate in front of us earns our support.
Sign the pledge. Make the demands. Refuse to be taken for granted.
This is not a revolution. This is a negotiation.
We are done being told to check our morals at the door.
We only need 2,500 voters to stand up publicly and say: Quid pro quo, Conley. Quid pro quo.
We only need 2,500 people who refuse the idea that having a moral compass is a luxury we can’t afford.
We only need 2,500 people who understand that the definition of insanity is delivering our votes to the same establishment machine every two years even though they never change course.
Not because we don't understand how elections work. Not because we are naive about what Mr. Lawler will continue to do with this seat.
But because we have watched the Democratic Party make a shitty deal with progressives for decades and it’s time to renegotiate the terms.
We are not naive. We are not idealists who don't understand compromise. We are voters who have compromised enough.
Sign the pledge. Make the demands. Refuse to be taken for granted.
What we are building.
We are not telling anyone how to vote.
We are building a bloc of voters in this district who are publicly, visibly conditional—who will not donate, canvas, phone bank, or vote for any candidate who has not made concrete commitments on the issues that determine whether people live or die, are deported or protected, can afford to stay in their homes or are forced out. Can survive a medical crisis or go bankrupt accessing care.
If Colonel Conley makes a good faith efforts, we will work with her. If she wins without making them, we will hold her to account from day one. If she ignores us, we will make sure every progressive voter in NY-17 knows she doesn’t feel she needs our vote.
Sign the pledge. Make the demands. Refuse to be taken for granted.
Our Demands
1. Condition military aid to Israel on compliance with international humanitarian law.
Oppose any weapons transfers to Israel while civilians are being targeted in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. Support legislation making all U.S. military aid conditional on compliance with the Leahy Law and international humanitarian law.
2. Oppose Palantir's ImmigrationOS and all AI-based deportation infrastructure.
Commit to voting against any legislation that funds or expands AI surveillance technology used to track, detain, or deport immigrant communities—including Palantir's ImmigrationOS contract specifically. Our neighbors are not data points.
3. Oppose 287(g) agreements that incentivize local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE
Support federal legislation prohibiting the use of federal funds to incentivize local law enforcement cooperation with ICE. Call publicly on Rockland, Putnam, and Westchester sheriffs to ban 287(g) agreements. The Hudson Valley's immigrant families should not fear that a traffic stop leads to a detention center.
4. Support community consent for data centers.
Oppose federal subsidies for data center construction in residential and rural communities without binding local consent processes and full environmental and energy impact review. The residents of this district have the right to determine what gets built in our communities.
5. Protect and expand healthcare access.
Commit to opposing any legislation that cuts, restricts, or privatizes Medicaid. Support lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55. A medical crisis should not mean financial ruin for families.
6. Cancel student debt and ban unpaid internships.
Support student debt cancellation legislation and federal prohibition of unpaid internships, which function as a class barrier locking working-class young people out of career pathways. We were promised education was a path to stability. That promise has to mean something.
7. Support rent stabilization and tenant protections.
Champion federal legislation protecting tenants from predatory evictions and algorithmic rent price-fixing—AI software that landlords use to coordinate rent increases across markets. Young people in the Hudson Valley are being priced out of the communities we grew up in.
8. Require Pentagon climate accountability.
Support legislation requiring the Department of Defense to fully account for its carbon emissions in all federal climate policy. The U.S. military is one of the largest institutional carbon emitters on earth. You cannot claim to care about the climate while exempting the military from scrutiny.
Sign the pledge. Make the demands. Refuse to be taken for granted.
#BabiesNotBombsNY17