Churchill: Elise Stefanik says she supports police. Her votes suggest otherwise.

ALBANY — U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik talks often about her support for police and derides Democrats for supposedly wanting to strip law enforcement of funding.

Consider what Stefanik (or somebody who works for her) tweeted on Monday: “America is facing a #CrimeCrisis due to the failed Far Left policies of Joe Biden & radical Dems. Defunding the police hurts every community!”

And on Tuesday: “Dems’ mantra ‘Defund the Police’ was one of their top policy & messaging points in 2020 … GOP has always supported increasing funding for police!”

But a recent legislative scorecard compiled by a organization representing rank-and-file cops suggests that Stefanik’s pro-police rhetoric doesn’t match her voting record.

The National Association of Police Officers says Stefanik voted with its legislative priorities just 57 percent of the time during the 116th Congress. That’s the lowest percentage among New York’s House of Representatives delegation — and notably lower than the percentages from Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (71 percent), Antonio Delgado (86 percent) and Paul Tonko (86 percent).

NAPO is not a liberal group, mind you. The organization, a coalition of police unions that is based in Virginia and claims to represent 241,000 police officers, endorsed Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

And some other Republicans scored well on NAPO’s scorecard, which considered votes on pensions, bulletproof vests, 9/11 compensation, health benefits, police reform and COVID-19 relief. Former U.S. Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican who retired in January, voted with the group 100 percent of the time in 2019 and 2020, for example.

I’d like to say that Stefanik offered a robust defense of her record and an explanation for her relatively poor ranking from NAPO. But her office did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment, which is par for the course.

To be clear, the argument here isn’t that Stefanik should have voted as NAPO wanted every time or that its measurement is flawless. But the scorecard illustrates, I think, that the issue of who supports police and who doesn’t is more nuanced than the North Country Republican would have you believe.

It’s easy to wrap yourself in a blue-and-black flag, as Stefanik metaphorically does. But that’s different from actually supporting the legislation that most directly impacts cops.

“Moderates from both parties tend to do the best on our scorecards, consistently,” said Andy Edmiston, the director of government affairs at NAPO, who noted that the ranking does not include the group’s priority legislation, typically uncontroversial, that passed the House by voice vote. 

Democrats tend to vote more often with NAPO’s labor priorities, Edmiston added, while Republicans agree more often with its policing priorities.

Stefanik, for example, voted against last year’s version of the George Floyd Justice in Police Act, which was opposed by NAPO and sought, among other steps, to limit the use of no-knock warrants and chokeholds. Tonko, the Democrat who represents much of the Capital Region, voted for it. 

The pair also split on the $3 trillion Coronavirus Relief Package supported by NAPO and most Democrats, but not Stefanik. As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post noted in a column about NAPO’s scorecard, the money funded the rehiring of four police officers in Watertown, a city in Stefanik’s 21st congressional district.

That little fact cuts against Stefanik’s attempts to paint police funding in simplistic, red-vs.-blue strokes. 

“Democrats are the Defund the Police party,” Stefanik tweeted, even though Joe Biden has proposed to more than double money for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program, from $165 million to $388 million. That isn’t defunding, folks.

Oh, well. As I’ve said before, Stefanik’s cynical bluster seems based on the assumption that we’re stupid. (Anyone relying on a politician’s Twitter account for accurate takes on reality might be.)

It is true, of course, that some on the progressive left want to reduce police spending and redirect some of the money toward social programs. That view is probably out of step with the people in neighborhoods most affected by crime, who in my experience say they want more police on their streets. 

I’d also argue that cutting police budgets is a bad idea — and not just because of rising crime. The best possible policing requires increased officer training and cops who aren’t stressed by unreasonable workloads. Those sorts of things require more money, not less.

Thankfully, there aren’t many elected Democrats who actually support defunding the police. It’s an area of bipartisan agreement, despite what Stefanik wants you to believe. 

cchurchill@timesunion.com ■ 518-454-5442 ■ @chris_churchill