Democrat Congresswoman Cindy Axne defended her decision to lie to the chief clerk of the United States House of Representatives regarding the reason she voted by proxy on the Inflation Reduction Act.
The only legal reason for a member to vote by proxy is due to COVID, and Axne claimed she had to vote by proxy due to the ongoing public health crisis.
However, she was vacationing in France at the time, seemingly not worried at all about the supposed “ongoing public health crisis.”
Axne continued defending her lie, saying there were 178 members who voted by proxy that day.
“It was a last-minute vote that was called,” she said. “That included Republican from Iowa Mariannette Miller-Meeks that you seem to keep forgetting about.”
Nunn asked if Miller-Meeks was out due to COVID or if she was out on vacation.
Axne said she wasn’t out on COVID.
“Here’s the situation, it is the language that is required to use to be able to vote,” she said. “I could’ve not voted and certainly not had to sit here and listen to this. But I chose to take the right vote for Iowa knowing that I’d probably be berated by my opponent and Republicans for literally just trying to do the right thing for Iowa in a cirumstance that I was put in.”
Axne’s explanation misses the point. Her foul isn’t that she voted by proxy, her foul is that she lied about why she missed work.
If almost anyone in Iowa’s Third District told their boss they couldn’t come to work due to illness, and the boss found out they were instead vacationing in France, there would likely be an issue.
The rules should apply to Axne. Clearly, she does not believe they do.
