Faso: Radical Professor’s NYC Style Campaign Doesn’t Reflect District’s Values

Kinderhook, NY — September 29, 2016 … In her ongoing attempt to mislead voters, radical professor Zephyr Teachout continues to spread a barrage of false narratives, misleading statements and downright inaccuracies, the campaign for John Faso today noted.

At a press conference at their Kinderhook home, John Faso and his wife Mary Frances, dispelled Teachout’s ongoing fibs and fabrications on a number of issues that she and her allies tout in her television advertisements, public statements and campaign literature. Most recently, Teachout’s fibs and fabrications center on attacks she and her outside allies have made questioning Faso’s attendance record in the state Assembly.

“Professor Teachout likes to present herself as the wide-eyed political newcomer who is running for Congress to solve all the world’s ills, but her dishonesty and extremism show her true colors,” Faso said. “She only recently landed here from Brooklyn and will do anything — even mangle the truth — to win a seat in Congress to achieve her ivory-tower view of America. It won’t work. Her radical socialist agenda and NYC style campaign doesn’t reflect the values of our district.”

Video of Faso available here.

In their first debate, Teachout stated that Mr. Faso missed 1,700 votes in the state Assembly.  Faso pointed out that he had a more than 97% attendance record and took particular exception to Teachout criticizing him for missing over 100 votes when his wife was in the hospital being operated on for cancer.  Teachout privately apologized to Faso immediately after the debate; then in her press gaggle after the debate, she doubled down and continued to say that Faso got paid but didn’t show up in the Assembly.

Now, in a new TV ad, Teachout ally – the so-called group “End Citizens United” continues the falsehoods by going back to her original claim that Faso missed 1,700 votes and was a negligent legislator.

The truth:  from 1987 thru 2002, Faso voted over 25,000 times in the Assembly and with excused absences for legislative business or family illnesses, was accounted for on 98.6 percent of Assembly votes.

“I’m not going to apologize for being with my wife in 1991 when she was being operated on for cancer.  And, I’m not going to apologize for being with my parents during the final days of their lives.” Faso said.  Faso’s mother passed away in March 1999; his  father died in March 2000 – both times when the legislature was in session.

“Had Ms. Teachout done her homework, she would have known these facts and not attempted to mislead the public.  Her first TV ad said that ‘most politicians think voters aren’t smart.’  Well now we see that Teachout actually does think voters can be tricked by fake attacks and false charges.  It is a shame that she and her outside allies, while showering themselves in virtue, actually show themselves to be dishonest with the people.  She disqualifies herself from office by these false attacks.  If she can’t be trusted to tell the truth about small things, how can voters trust her to tell the truth about the major issues facing our nation,” Faso concluded.

Faso has a long record of cutting taxes and closing budget deficits that go back to his tenure as Minority Leader in the Assembly, where he developed and pushed proposals that led to real balanced budgets – including the first reduction in state spending in decades while closing a $5 billion deficit. He championed legislation that made a difference for tens of thousands of families such as the STAR program and education and real property tax reform. A former board member of the Rockefeller Institute of Government, Faso also served for three years as a member of the Control Board that worked to fix the financial and managerial issues of the City of Buffalo and its school system.

Faso is running on a platform centered around key reform principles to help small businesses, notably simplifying the tax code, ending corporate welfare, investing in small businesses and ending Washington’s regulatory madness.

John Faso (R-Kinderhook) is former Republican leader of the state Assembly and candidate for Congress in the 19th Congressional district. To learn more about Faso, visit johnfaso.com.

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