During one of the Third Congressional District debates, former Congressman David Young was able to ask current Congresswoman Cindy Axne a question about a bill she supported that allows political campaigns to use public money.
Here was his question:
“You just mentioned a bill you supported, HR 1, having to do with campaigns and elections and you said that we needed to get money out of politics. Yet you voted for that bill, which put money into politics. It takes public funds, which are essentially taxpayer dollars, to pay for your own personal political campaign. Why would you do that?”
Axne’s answer:
“Well, I appreciate you bringing that up because that’s actually what I fought against in that bill and so many of us who are representing states like Iowa said we weren’t in support of that. So the representative who was the lead on that bill heard our voices and how that money would be paid is by bad actors in this country. Folks like our large fossil fuel companies who dump oil into the ocean. And that funding that they have to pay back to the government to pay for the cost expended by the federal government to cover those costs is how we would fund those elections. So this is not using taxpayer dollars, this is using the dollars of bad actors who are hurting this country.”
Young quipped, “those funds should go back to the people and not into your personal political campaign.”
