5th District Candidate Cope Calls Esty 'Master of Avoiding Bad News'

NEWTOWN, CT — Clay Cope, Sherman's First Selectman, is running as the Republican candidate for the 41-town 5th District of Connecticut which includes the towns of Bethel, Brookfield, Danbury, New Milford, Newtown and more. Cope has bene critical on Esty's lack of visibility in the district over the last several years and said she has also been silent on a number of important issues.

The following letter to the editor was written by Clay Cope.

"Bad news yields silence from Esty— when illegal aliens commit murder, when Obamacare is on life support, when Obama Pays cash to ransom U.S. hostages, all you hear from Esty is crickets.

Elizabeth Esty is a master at avoiding bad news, whether it is running away from her responsibility to defend her abysmal record in Washington in debates before the voters who elected her, or turning a blind eye to news that doesn't support her re-election campaign narrative.

"A twice-deported illegal alien murders his daughter in a grotesque 'honor killing' and Elizabeth Esty is silent," said Clay Cope, the Republican candidate for Congress in the 5th District. "There is no outcry because this indefensible criminal act was committed by an illegal alien. And it shows that we need to enforce our immigration laws."

"When Aetna announces it is walking away from 70 percent of its business activity in the Obamacare exchanges due to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, it proves what every critic of Obamacare knew from the very beginning," Cope continued. "This centrally-planned behemoth was a house of cards built on a foundation of sand - it was doomed to fail due to high deductibles and costs, lack of choice, and too few providers and insurers. But we hear not a peep from Esty."

"When the Obama Administration loads an unmarked private air craft, in the dark of night, with $400 million in cash destined for the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and timed to secure the release of American hostages - it is just business as usual for Esty."

"And when she is challenged to discuss her record in Washington, and her plans for the future, in a series of 41 debates - one in each of the 41 towns she supposedly represents - her campaign calls it a gimmick. And she refuses to participate."

"Esty has already proven she cares little for the small towns in our District via her noticeable and prolonged absence as well as her ongoing partisan political activity," said Cope.

"And her voting record, on key issues like the dangerous and ill-conceived Iranian Nuclear Deal, and the SAFE Act, which would have paused the influx of Syrian refugees to assure terrorists were not hiding among them, endanger the safety and welfare of every citizen in the 5th District."

"Elizabeth Esty is a career politician who is supported by Special Interests and PACs in Washington, and who in turn supports the costly and ineffective status quo in DC."

"Esty supports Hillary Clinton, and her plans to increase Federal spending and taxes by more than a $1 trillion - which is exactly the same misguided tax-and-spend formula that Gov. Malloy has used to drive the economy in Connecticut into a ditch. That tells you all you need to know about her priorities and plans for the 5th District.

"Esty wants just more of the same when we need change."

— Written by Clay Cope, 5th District Candidate for Congress

To send a letter to the editor, email wendy.mitchell@patch.com