Fact check: Did GOP’s Valadao work with Democrats on health care, water and immigration?
Former Rep. David Valadao in a new campaign ad portrays himself as someone who worked across the aisle while he was in Congress, contrasting himself with current lawmakers who’ve been unable to pass a new coronavirus relief package..
Valadao, a Republican from Hanford, is running to reclaim his former House seat against incumbent Rep. TJ Cox, D-Fresno. Cox beat Valadao in 2018 by fewer than 1,000 votes, and the seat is a top target for Republicans.
The district is majority Democrat — it went to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by 16 points in 2016 — but Valadao represented the district for six years.
A campaign advertisement says Valadao worked with former President Barack Obama and bucked the GOP to deliver results for the district. While technically true, some of those claims leave out key details. For instance, an immigration reform package he supported and touts in the new ad failed in a mostly partisan split that resembles the current Congress.
Valadao’s campaign and the National Republican Congressional Committee paid for the ad. It is airing in the district both on TV and digitally, and the campaign did not specify an end date.
What the ad says
“As the coronavirus threatens our jobs and our health, the Washington politicians just argue instead of working together,” a narrator says.
“David Valadao is different. An independent, problem solver, he worked with President Obama to bring more water to the Central Valley, made health care more accessible, and stood up to his own party to reform immigration and protect Dreamers. David Valadao is on our side.”
Analysis
His first claim in the advertisement is he “worked with President Obama to bring more water to the Central Valley.” His campaign pointed to the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, a law signed by Obama in December 2016.
Valadao was not that bill’s sponsor. Portions of it included language similar to a bill that Valadao sponsored and that passed through the Republican-led House in 2015. His bill did not pass through the Senate.
The law Obama signed included provisions that called for increased water deliveries to the Central Valley and expedited water storage projects.
The second claim is that Valadao “made health care more accessible.” His campaign pointed to two votes Valadao took that reauthorized a program that provided health care to children in low-income households that made too much money to be covered by Medicaid, called CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program).
But both of those bills, one signed into law in 2015 and the other in 2018, simply reauthorized funding for the program. They did not make health care “more” accessible. The 2015 law, which also fixed some unintended issues with Medicare funding, was largely bipartisan, receiving a 392 to 37 vote in the House.
And in the case of the 2018 law, CHIP funding had actually lapsed for 114 days due to a government shutdown. The vote Valadao took to re-authorize CHIP funding for six years was in a bill finally pulled together to end that stalemate. The shutdown was a direct consequence of partisan fights at the time.
Finally, Valadao said he “stood up to his own party to reform immigration and protect Dreamers.” Valadao did buck his party, co-sponsoring a Democrat-authored bill that would provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers — young immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children. But that bill, introduced in 2017 during a Republican-controlled Congress, went nowhere.
Valadao was then part of an effort in 2018 among some Republicans to push for immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for Dreamers. It also included more limits on legal immigration and increased border security. After weeks of constant negotiations within the Republican party, that bill also failed to pass the House, with both Democrats and Republicans largely voting against it.
Democrats in the House passed a bill in 2019 that grants a path to citizenship for Dreamers, but they did not try to work with Republicans and the Republican-controlled Senate and President Donald Trump have ignored it.
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