Today Cindy Axne released a new ad titled “Promised” full of distortions and mistruths. Young for Iowa Campaign Manager Andy Swanson responded, “Cindy Axne and her campaign are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. Axne is rehashing the same distortions and mistruths she did in the last election, while not being honest about her own record on standing up to her own party.”
Below is a fact check of her claims in the ad.
Claim: David Young failed to protect people with pre-existing conditions
Fact: It’s not surprising to see the Axne campaign touting the same distortions and mistruths about David’s record as they did in 2018. David Young has fought to protect people with pre-existing conditions. David’s recent ad “Alli” highlights one story of David going to bat on behalf of an Iowan with a pre-existing condition being denied coverage. The American Health Care Act included four layers of protection for those with pre-existing conditions which David was responsible for getting in the bill. It is also notable the Axne campaign didn’t use this Des Moines Register piece they are fond of sharing that verifies his work on protecting those with pre-existing conditions. Instead, their “source” for this claim is the Des Moines Register’s endorsement of her – not exactly a neutral article.
Claim: David Young changed his vote when GOP party leaders pulled their support of his campaign.
Fact: Cindy Axne is still obsessed with this conspiracy theory. She apparently doesn’t remember the fact when the AHCA came up for a vote, Iowa had already lost Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield from the individual market and Medica was considering pulling out as well. This would have left 70,000 Iowans in 94 counties without health care. That horrifying fact, and that David’s objection to the bill’s lack of protections for those with pre-existing conditions was fixed with his amendment adding those four layers of protections, gave him the comfort to vote for the bill. Cindy Axne’s claim that David Young caved is simply false – the fact is David was looking out for his constituents the whole time.
Claim: Cindy Axne stood up to her party.
Fact: Cindy Axne has voted 95% of the time with Nancy Pelosi. While she may have broken with her party on $5 million for computers, she was OK with Democrats using the CARES Act, whose purpose was to provide relief for small businesses, for their partisan wish list. This included $25 million for the Kennedy Center, $1.2 billion to require airlines to use a more expensive fuel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, $600 million to the National Endowment of the Arts and the Humanities, and $500 million to the Institute of Museum and Library Science.
Cindy Axne didn’t stand up to her party when they rammed through a rule change to allow proxy voting – then took advantage of it herself to give Iowa’s Third District vote to liberal east coast Congressman Jamie Raskin without telling her constituents she wasn’t showing up for work.
Cindy Axne is not standing up to her party on the Public Option, which will close up to 52 of Iowa’s 90 rural hospitals, leaving Iowans without access to health care, increased taxes and even larger federal deficit.
Cindy Axne didn’t stand up to her party when their solution to campaign finance reform was to make taxpayers foot the bill for her political campaign upwards of $5 million.
How can Cindy Axne stand up to her own party when she tells Democrats it’s so important to “make sure that speaker Pelosi continues to hold the gavel?” (Clip starts at the 2:10:51 mark)
The fact that Cindy Axe also tries to have it both ways on the HEROES Act should make everyone question her real motives behind her claims. Cindy Axne was touting the HEROES Act in an interview on KMA Radio on May 14th, before issuing a statement announcing she was voting against it the very next day. Yet in an interview with Raccoon Valley Radio on August 6th on coronavirus relief, Axne is quoted “We had our bill available back in May.” Axne touted the bill, then votes against the bill, then touts the bill again.
