Katie McGinty (D. PA) is hitting Tea Party U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R. PA) and GOP Presidential nominee, Donald Trump, on two key issues. First, there’s Toomey on this issue:
McGinty held a phone conference criticizing GOP Senator Pat Toomey for his previous votes against bills that would have provided funding to fight the spread of zika, and for his support of a recent bill that would provide zika funding, while slashing support for the Affordable Care Act. The former State Secretary of Environmental Protection says lawmakers have the ability to ward off zika, before it spreads in the state like West Nile Virus.
“But we can’t do it with a lot of hot air and a lot of rhetoric,” the Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate said. “What we need to do is provide the resources so that the experts can take action.”
McGinty partnered with Patricia Aiken of the PA Association of Staff Nurses to underscore the medical community’s concern about funding zika efforts.
And when it comes to Trump, McGinty published an op-ed piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on this issue:
Donald Trump thundered into Western Pennsylvania last week and, as usual, he mostly made a lot of noise.
But I tuned in since he was talking about trade, and we do need to change course on bad trade deals if we are going to address our most urgent need: rebuilding the middle class with family-sustaining jobs.
Most of Mr. Trump's speech was nonsense. Anyone who thinks the problem in America is that people make too much money or that women just need to work harder if they expect equal pay is not in touch with how hard people already work and how stagnant incomes have been.
Mr. Trump focused on two issues that have helped him make millions: trade deals and putting Chinese profits ahead of American jobs.
Here in Pennsylvania, we have seen firsthand the negative impact of bad trade deals. Factories have been shut down. Thousands of jobs have been lost.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership would only make things worse. Independent experts say the TPP likely would eliminate some 50,000 good jobs every year in the United States, mostly in manufacturing.
We also cannot continue enabling China to get ahead unfairly at the expense of American workers. Pennsylvania has lost more than 120,000 jobs to China just since 2001 because we’ve allowed China to play by its own rules, manipulating its currency and dumping its steel and other products into our markets.
I strongly encourage you to read the whole op-ed because she goes into detail about how she wants to stand up for the American worker. On Toomey's end, he's avoiding running on fiscal and economic issues this time around and instead focused on this:
In a letter to the White House last week, Toomey urged the president to rescind an executive order that blocked transfers of surplus high-caliber military equipment to local law enforcement.
“You have continued to restrict local police access to armored vehicles, explosives, protective helmets, and other lifesaving, federal equipment,” Toomey wrote to Obama. “Specifically, you have restricted local police departments from using federal funds for these items.”
Toomey cited the BearCat vehicle that saved lives while the Orlando attacker was taking hostages inside the nightclub in order to bolster his argument that police departments need access to this type of equipment.
The letter has led to accusations from his political opponents of political posturing at best and at worst attempting to take advantage of the shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando to get re-elected.
It doesn’t help that Toomey—who is positioning himself as a security hawk—once voted for an amendment that would have scrapped the very program he claims to be championing.
But that was before he was in the race of his career.
The Pennsylvania Republican and former chairman of the conservative Club for Growth rode the 2010 wave of conservatives elected to Congress while largely billing himself as a fiscal and budget hawk.
While in some areas he has sought to strike the middle ground—such as with gun control—Toomey has recently taken a harder line and tone on law and order. In March, he introduced a bill, the Lifesaving Gear for Police Act, that would fully reinstate the program that allowed the military to give their surplus weaponry to police departments.
President Obama signed an executive order last May to limit the so-called 1033 program—which allows the Department of Defense to liquidate its surplus military equipment and transfer it to local law enforcement—after the shooting death of a young black man by police in Ferguson, Missouri, ignited clashes between police and protesters.
At the time, police were accused of utilizing weaponry that was more suited for the streets of a war zone than of a U.S. suburb.
In his letter, Toomey argued that after Orlando, the program should be fully reinstated, and that items such as bayonets and weaponized aircraft should be sent to local police units with few restrictions.
I'm also glad that Toomey is getting called out on his silence for gun control after 2013:
His work on gun laws has come under scrutiny since the Orlando shooting and has figured prominently in his tough reelection battle, a race that could help determine control of the Senate. While he has touted his background-checks bill as a sign of willingness to work across the aisle, his challenger, Katie McGinty, has accused him of political posturing, and she and other Democrats scoff that his efforts have failed to bring other Republicans on board.
Some gun-control advocates who hailed Toomey's 2013 bill have been dismayed by his recent votes.
In December and June, he opposed Democratic proposals to close the so-called terror gap that allows suspected terrorists to clear background checks. He also helped block a Democratic background-check bill. Instead, Toomey voted for GOP proposals backed by the National Rifle Association.
He also drew up his own plan on the terror gap and was one of eight Republicans to support a compromise offered by Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) last month, but neither gained traction.
"It's a little bit of mixed messages. Does he want to solve the problem? Does he want to be a bipartisan deal-maker? Is this a top priority for him?" asked Shira Goodman, executive director of CeaseFirePA, which praised Toomey's background-check effort with Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) in 2013.
With Republicans holding the Senate, she said, Toomey should be pushing his colleagues to act: "Putting his name on Manchin-Toomey was a great first step, but there's more we can do."
Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said that while Toomey was "there at a time that we really needed him" on background checks, he was "not off the hook."
But Toomey continues to paint himself as Mr. Tough On Crime through Donald Trump-style fear mongering:
Six years later, the Pennsylvania senator is locked in one of the tightest reelection races in the country. And with fiscal issues taking a back seat to immigration and terrorism in the year of Donald Trump, Toomey is tweaking his message to fit the mood.
His revised profile takes center stage on Wednesday, when the Senate is set to vote on legislation authored by the first-term senator that would strip some federal funds from cities and counties that don’t cooperate with federal immigration officials.
Sanctuary cities — an issue, like many other immigration policies, that is rife with contentious politics — burst into the national spotlight with the death of 32-year-old Kate Steinle last July by an immigrant in the United States illegally who had been deported several times but returned each time.
Through Senate speeches, a radio ad and now, getting his own bill on the floor for a vote, Toomey has seized on sanctuary cities. It’s a key part of his broader effort to paint Democratic challenger Katie McGinty as lax on crime in one of this year’s most competitive Senate races.
We can't allow Toomey to scare his way back into the Senate. Click here to donate and get involved with McGinty's campaign.