Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA07) is under fire from the right for what she believes is an unfair reason.
She voted against an amendment Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX02) proposed in the House against illegal immigrant voting, but claims this doesn’t represent her position.
On a recent radio interview, Spanberger had to come to account for the apparent double talk.
John Fredericks, the interviewer, explained this idea “would be like me taking a vacation in Paris and voting from Macron”. Then he asked, “how do you break the law and then be able to vote in an election?”
The vote in question was against Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s amendment to H.R. 1 that stated that allowing illegal immigrants to vote in any U.S. election “devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens”.1
Spanberger admitted she voted against the proposal, but stated she opposes non-citizens voting in federal elections. She then tried to frame her move as merely a procedural vote.2
“[T]he procedural vote that you are referencing was a resolution affirming, just noting, that only U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote in elections, and so I did vote against that procedural amendment” Spanberger said.
However, this was the main vote that killed Crenshaw’s measure in the House.
Additionally, Crenshaw’s amendment was not intended to cover only federal elections.
The text specifically references San Franciso, in which illegal immigrants are permitted to register to vote in local elections.1
Fredericks raised the point to Spanberger that she appeared to vote differently than her stated position.
“Average people look at this, Congresswoman Spanberger, and it looks like double talk,” Fredericks said. “From what you’re saying it’s almost like when John Kerry was running for President, he was for it before he was against it… So you’re saying you’re against it, but you didn’t vote against it so it begs the question.”
Fredericks continued his line of questioning on some of the major agenda items of the Democratic Presidential nominees.
Since Spanberger is a Democrat, Fredericks explained he wanted to know if she differed from the far-left members of her caucus.
“Your Democratic presidential candidates are talking about increasing the number of Supreme Court justices from 9 to another number so I have to ask the question, are you in favor of that?” Fredericks asked.
Spanberger answered that she didn’t know, but was considering what the effects of that play may be.
Regarding the amendment changing the federal voting age to 16, Spanberger shared that she supported the proposal. “When the amendment was put before me, yes, I voted for it.”
However, when the questions turned to eliminating the electoral college Spanberger avoided giving a straight answer at first and tried to turn the tables back on the radio host.
“Well, I’m going to first ask a question. Is part of the concern that you might have about this, John, the fact that voters might vote a different way than what you would?” Spanberger asked.
“I’m going to go with the Founding Fathers on this… like with the Constitution and other things that I believe in. I’m going to go with their judgement” answered Fredericks.
Spanberger went on to explain her support for the idea of a national vote over the electoral college.
Apart from the Green New Deal, Spanberger didn’t name any major proposals from Democrat Presidential candidates that she would oppose.
Unfortunately for the Congresswoman, failing to distance herself from the far-left members of her caucus may harm her re-election bid in VA-07 which went blue this last election for the first time since 1971.
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