Rogers wrong on Sinema budget voting record
TITLE:
PARTY:
ANALYSIS:
THE RACE:
THE TARGET:
THE FORUM:
Wendy Rogers.
Retired Air Force officer and small-business owner.
Republican.
U.S. House of Representatives in the Tempe-based 9th District.
Democratic incumbent Rep. Kyrsten Sinema.
“Given that she has not voted for a single budget or offered a solution of her own — it’s pretty clear she’s not doing her job.”
THE COMMENT:
News release posted to her campaign website.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING AT:
Whether Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has voted for a budget during her two years in Congress.
Although Congress is supposed to pass a budget every year, it rarely does. It didn’t agree on a budget between 2009 and 2012, and it barely passed a bipartisan budget in 2013 after a 16-day government shutdown.
One of Sinema’s first votes in Congress was for the No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013, which required both houses to agree to a budget resolution by April 15. If they failed to pass a budget as a chamber by that date, members’ salaries would be withheld. After President Barack Obama signed the bill into law, the Senate passed its first budget resolution in four years.
When Sinema released an ad drawing attention to that vote, her Republican challenger, Rogers, called on her to give back her pay because she hadn’t voted for a budget resolution or proposed one of her own.
The first step in the federal budget process is the president’s budget proposal, which lays out details of where he believes Congress should appropriate funds.
Once Congress has the president’s proposal, both chambers’ budget committees begin drafting their own budget resolutions.
One of Sinema’s first votes in Congress was for the No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013, which required both houses to agree to a budget resolution by April 15.
Sinema isn’t part of the House budget committee, so she couldn’t offer her own solutions until the committee finishes its resolution and sends it to the entire House. Committee chairs, ranking members and caucuses will often submit their own budget proposals as amendments to the budget committee’s resolution.
Rogers spokesman James Harris said members of Congress who want to be leaders would offer plans regardless of how long they’ve been in office.
“We believe that Kyrsten is an obstructionist who is getting in the way,” he said.
Sinema joined between 25 and 30 Democrats to vote against the Democratic Caucus’ amendment in both years. In 2014, she said this was because the original budget resolution and the proposed amendments were created in “partisan silos.”
“Last spring, I voted against partisan budgets, demanding Congress put the American people ahead of partisan politics,” she said in a press release. “Today, I voted against more partisan games.”
Sinema did vote for a bipartisan budget act proposed in December 2013. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray introduced the act, which set funding for fiscal 2014 and 2015.
The Murray-Ryan budget combined parts of the House and Senate proposals. Sinema voted to approve it, as did a majority of the House and Senate.
“This budget agreement is by no means perfect nor a long term solution to the challenges we face in our country or in our state, but it is the first reasonable budget that has come to the floor in a long time,” she said in a statement after voting. “I voted yes because we need to work together, even with people we don’t always agree with, to provide stability, reduce the deficit, grow the economy, and create jobs for hardworking Arizona families.”
Sinema also voted for several continuing resolutions, including one that would have prevented the 2013 government shutdown and one that ended it. When Congress can’t come to a consensus on how to appropriate funding to agencies before the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1, continuing resolutions preserve temporary funding. Failing to approve appropriations bills or continuing resolutions can result in a government shutdown like ones that happened in 2013 and 1995.
Sinema voted for a bipartisan budget act in 2013, making Rogers’ claim that she has “not voted for a single budget” false.
BOTTOM LINE:
THE FINDING:
SOURCES:
No stars, false.
“Introduction to the Federal Budget Process,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Roll Call results from House Clerk’s website; phone interview with Wendy Rogers spokesman James Harris; House Budget Committee’s information on the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013; e-mail from Kyrsten Sinema campaign manager Michelle Davidson.