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WASHINGTON - While top Republicans charge that Democrats are playing politics with the Hurricane Katrina disaster, a GOP campaign organization this week blasted Democratic congressional members for their votes on the $51.8 billion aid package.
The only problem? Their allegations aren't true.
The National Republican Congressional Committee issued news releases Thursday night bashing Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and separate ones for 64 other Democrats for voting against the supplemental aid package. The headline: "Matheson Votes Against $52B Disaster Relief Package for Katrina Survivors."
"It is absolutely reprehensible and shameful that some elected officials are looking to score political points in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's devastation," National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y, is quoted in the release as saying. He went on to say that Democrats are delaying a vote on the package so they can engage in "finger-pointing" and "political gamesmanship."
But Matheson, and all other House Democrats, voted for the aid. In fact, the 11 House members who opposed the aid on the final vote were Republicans.
It is true that Matheson sided twice on separate votes with fellow Democrats earlier in the day, once against stopping debate and another time on a procedural move called suspending the rules.
On Friday, Matheson said he wasn't too surprised by the NRCC release.
"This is just par for the course," he said. "These guys have no shame. They lie about my record all the time."
NRCC spokesman Carl Forti says the news release was accurate and not misleading. He noted that by opposing the two procedural moves, Matheson was voting against the package. "He was initially voting not to have a vote on the relief package," Forti said. "On a vote like this that would pass overwhelmingly, they wanted to kill it beforehand."
Forti says the news release was sent before the final vote on the bill and there was no need to update the release later. Asked why the NRCC would complain that Democrats were initially voting against the aid package, but give a pass to the 11 Republicans who did vote against the bill, Forti said that those GOP House members had justification for their votes.
Kirk Jowers, the director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics and a Washington lawyer, says the blame game is rampant over Katrina and this release is typical of campaign tactics.
"Both parties have just become experts at setting each other up on every piece of legislation," Jowers said. "Rep. Matheson voted the way they wanted him to [in the final vote], but they still find a way to attack him because he didn't do it exactly the way they wanted him to."
But this is not the first flub from the NRCC regarding Matheson.
Last year, as Matheson faced Republican John Swallow in the general election, the NRCC used the State Republican Party to send out fliers slamming Matheson for co-sponsoring a bill that would allow states to give undocumented workers' children resident tuition at state colleges. The flier didn't mention Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, also back "The Dream Act."
The NRCC also produced a card accusing Matheson of "siding with big drug companies instead of Utah seniors" for supporting President Bush's Medicare drug benefit plan.