Waltz says he’s a Republican who can work with Dems
When Michael Waltz is sworn into Congress in January, he’ll be one of the few freshmen with counterterrorism experience in the White House and Pentagon and one of a growing number who’ve served in the military.
But as a Republican, he’ll be in the minority in the House.
Even so, the 44-year-old from St. Augustine said he can work with Democrats on issues ranging from transportation and infrastructure to bringing more space and aeronautics jobs to his district, which includes Volusia County, Flagler County and parts of Lake and St Johns counties.
“There’s a lot we can do,” Waltz told the Orlando Sentinel in an interview Tuesday.
Waltz, a counterterrorism adviser during the George W. Bush administration and founder of Metis Solutions, a government services provider, said he’s reached out not only to fellow Republicans such as U.S. Rep. John Rutherford, R-Jacksonville, and Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis, but also U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Winter Park, a former national security specialist herself who worked with Waltz at the Department of Defense.
“I ran on a bipartisan platform and on getting results,” said Waltz, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who served in Afghanistan as a Green Beret. “In the foxholes, I’m fond of saying, nobody cares about race, religion, social or economic background. It’s about mission; it’s about country. So we can work together I think on a number of things.”
In an email, Murphy said, “I was proud to work with Mike at the Pentagon to help keep our country safe. Now that we are both in Congress, I look forward to working with him once again to strengthen our great nation ... [and] in a bipartisan way on issues unique and important to our state.”
Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, said representatives in the minority in the House have little power to pass laws short of adding amendments to bills.
“But they certainly can use the office as a bully pulpit, to at least talk about issues important to them, and issues important to their constituents,” Jewett said.
For Waltz, one of his major issues is reforming the Veterans Administration.
“I do not think we’re giving veterans still the care and the service they were promised and they deserve,” he said.
“I think if veterans weren’t
given the care that they need, then they increasingly should be able to go to the private sector,” Waltz said. “We shouldn’t have veterans driving by very capable doctors and hospitals to get to a VA hospital if it’s not meeting their needs.”
He said he’s requested to serve on the Veterans Affairs Committee in Congress, but “we’ll see what we get. Freshmen tend to get the bottom of their picks. But we’re lobbying hard.”
On immigration, he said
he thought the aborted deal that was almost worked out earlier this year between President Trump and Democrats in Congress to offer DACA recipients a pathway to citizenship in return for increased border funding was “incredibly pragmatic.”
He also said the legal immigration system should be reformed to add more merit-based immigration, citing the more than 50,000 people on a Special Immigrant Visa waiting list that includes people who have helped the U.S. military in war zones.
“I personally sponsored an Afghan soldier to come here as a U.S. citizen,” Waltz said. “And I know a number of interpreters and soldiers who have been executed by the Taliban and by Al Qaeda for standing with Americans while on the waiting list to come here.”
The commercial spaceflight industry, he added, is “set to explode” from a few launches a month to a few a day in the next two decades.
“I want Florida to have a big piece of that,’’ he said. “Embry-Riddle [Aeronautical Univerity in Daytona Beach] should be front and center in the middle of that, we shouldn’t be bringing in engineers from California or from Massachusetts and
MIT when we’re training them right here in Florida.”
As for the Space Force announced by President Trump earlier this year, “A lot of people make a lot of jokes. I get it. But it’s actually an idea that emanated in the Congress, [and] President Trump has then magnified it and given guidance to the Pentagon.”
Whether it becomes a distinct branch of the Air Force, similar to the Marine Corps being part of the Navy, or a separate, sixth branch of the military is yet to be determined, he said.
Northern Lake County, he said, is “dealing with infrastructure needs … and
they’re dealing with growth from Orlando. That’s a good thing for the economy, that’s a good thing for business and for growth, but how do we manage that in a responsible way?”
Waltz said he wanted to make those decisions “as local as possible.”
“If they need federal resources, absolutely, I’ll fight for those to come to Florida and come to the district,” he said. “But I don’t like onesize-fits-all decisions made from Washington.”