# Joe Morelle U.S. Representative for **New York's 25th district** — Monroe County and part of Orleans County, anchored on Rochester — since a 2018 special election. He was Majority Leader of the New York State Assembly from 2013 to 2018, and has been the **ranking Democrat on the Committee on House Administration** since 2023. He also sits on House Appropriations. ## Why He Matters Here Morelle authored the minority's 2026 rebuttal to the White House campaign against the [[Smithsonian Institution]] — a committee report titled *The White House Campaign to Seize Control of the Smithsonian and Rewrite American History*, published after the July 21–22 House hearings on the [[Domestic Policy Council]]'s "Saving America's Story." Its central move was to relocate the change from the museums to the President. In February 2017, Morelle noted, Trump had publicly praised the National Museum of African American History and Culture and its founding director Lonnie Bunch for telling "the great struggle for freedom and equality that prevailed against the sins of slavery and the injustice of discrimination." As Morelle put it: "Smithsonian museums did not change what they teach about slavery between 2017 and today" — the President changed his position on whether they should be allowed to teach it. The report also documented how the White House had cut apart a sentence by museum director Anthea Hartig to make an ordinary historian's word, "problematize," read as a confession of ideological intent. ## Election administration The Committee on House Administration oversees the conduct of federal elections, which makes Morelle the House Democrats' lead on the [[USPS Federal Ballot Mail Portal]]. On **September 1, 2026** he responded to the whistleblower disclosure about the Portal: the allegations are "extraordinary," and if administration officials "knowingly built a system designed to prevent Americans from receiving their ballots, that is not election security. It is a betrayal of our Constitution and the American people." ## The election-law minority lead As ranking Democrat on House Administration, the committee with jurisdiction over federal elections, Morelle is the minority's point person against the Republican election agenda. That includes the [[SAVE Act]]'s documentary-proof-of-citizenship requirement, which he opposed on the floor in July 2024. His line was that "it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections" and that the bill's real effect would be to erode confidence in elections while doing nothing about underfunding or threats to election workers. The same argument runs through his response to the ballot-mail portal and to the administration's election orders ([[Executive Order 14399]]). ## 2026 Morelle won the **June 23, 2026** Democratic primary with about **64%**, beating community organizer Robin Wilt (about 30%) and former Greece school board member Sherita Traywick. He ran on banning congressional stock trading and on Supreme Court ethics and term limits. In November he faces Republican **Virginia McIntyre**, a Monroe County legislator, in a Rochester-based seat that has stayed Democratic since he won it. If Democrats take the House, Morelle is in line to chair House Administration, the committee that would oversee the 2028 election rules. ## Related - [[Smithsonian Institution]] — the institution his report defends - [[Executive Order 14253]] · [[Executive Order 14416]] — the orders the campaign runs on - [[Domestic Policy Council]] — author of the report he rebutted - [[USPS Federal Ballot Mail Portal]] · [[Executive Order 14399]] — the ballot-mail fight - [[SAVE Act]] · [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] · [[State Election Administration Tree]]