Call him “The SALT Shaker.”
As a Congressional predecessor, constituent, and supporter of the Member of the House for New York’s 17th District, Mike Lawler, I’m pretty certain he wouldn’t reject this moniker. Ever since his 2022 upset victory over then-DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) chair and five-term incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney—fortified by holding the redistricted seat in 2024–he’s been shaking things up.
The successful political bet that first brought Mr. Lawler to Washington was so stunningly audacious that he rocketed to the forefront of media attention, and he’s used that prominence resourcefully and well. He’s adroitly managed the politics of a suburban swing district with majority Democrat registration in deep-blue New York by diverging just enough from the House GOP Party line to be credibly independent, while remaining a majority-making Republican worthy of defending. His vote against the 2023 “Parents Bill of Rights Act,” which raised concerns among his transgender-supporting constituents–even as he’d been a co-sponsor of the bill!–is but one illustration of how Lawler manages to make himself the Schrödinger’s cat of New York politics.
And, like a cat, Mr. Lawler appears thus far to have an ample supply of lives — not that he’s lost any of them yet, but he evinces no fear treading agilely along narrow ledges and jumping from one high-risk perch to the next. It takes a particular combination of intellectual wherewithal and calculating sangfroid to survive in this urban/suburban jungle, and Mike Lawler shows all evidence of possessing both in his latest and highest-profile endeavor: to raise the deduction from federal taxes for state and local taxes, a.k.a. SALT.
This deduction particularly benefits residents of states like California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York, who pay dearly for the privilege of living there in income and property taxes (State And Local Taxes, or SALT) and can achieve some relief by deducting the latter from their federal taxes. Prior to the GOP’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) the entirety of state and local taxes could be deducted, but the TCJA reduced the amount to a paltry $10,000, creating new burdens for middle- and upper-middle-class income earners especially.
While several Republicans comprise the SALT Caucus, Mike Lawler is the one who’s become its face, setting a big marker by introducing a bill in January to raise the deduction to $100,000 for single filers ($200,000 for married couples) and adamantly refusing to vote, as a Member of a House Majority that can ill afford to lose his “yea,” for any legislation that didn’t lift the TCJA’s cap sufficiently.
Mr. Lawler’s taking on the role of SALT shaker likely originates from two areas of intense interest to him: first, he has a lot of constituents with incomes sufficiently high to appreciate a higher SALT deduction. Second, and much more tantalizingly, he’s acknowledged he may run for Governor. Being seen as the hero emerging from the SALT mines of the “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) could put him at an advantage.
President Trump may have done Mike Lawler a favor by name-checking him at the May 20 House GOP meeting, telling him to get in line on the BBB and accept the $30,000 cap they’d negotiated. Where some Members might have capitulated, cool cat Mike Lawler fought on defiantly—and won an additional $10,000 for his constituent households earning up to $500,000 annually.
It’s not at all clear Mr. Lawler’s SALT deduction will survive the Senate, but it is clear that his having stood firm versus the President and Congressional GOP could make him the most compelling candidate in a potential gubernatorial primary against other high-profile Republicans in a state that doesn’t exactly love their party.
Mike Lawler’s betting the right amount of SALT may make for a very savory political recipe.
The Honorable Nan A.S. Hayworth, M.D. was the Member of Congress for the 19th District of New York from 2011 to 2013.
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