Over the weekend, Democratic congressional candidate Sue Altman took to Twitter to criticize her prospective Republican opponent, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), over a vote congressional Republicans took against funding the Capitol Police. The problem: that vote took place in 2021, before Kean took office.
The specific bill Altman’s tweet references is the Emergency Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021, a bill that provided emergency funds to the Capitol Police, the National Guard, and other agencies following the January 6 attack on the Capitol; it also included some provisions related to Afghan refugees. It was brought up for a vote when Democrats still controlled the majority in the House.
Every single House Republican voted against the bill, as did three Democrats, so Altman’s criticism could apply to the Republican caucus at-large – but Kean wasn’t elected to Congress until 2022, more than a year after the vote took place. According to Harrison Neely, a Kean campaign advisor, Altman’s attack is a sign of Democrats’ desperation.
“This vote took place before [Kean] was even elected,” Neely said. “Imagine being so desperate to muddy the fact that you promoted defunding that police that you’re lying to voters and it’s only May.”
But Altman hit back that even if the specific vote she referenced didn’t happen when Kean was in Congress, there have been other votes since then targeting federal police funding, and Kean did vote for several of those. Last fall, for instance, Kean supported an (ultimately unsuccessful) stopgap funding bill that slashed most federal funding by as much as 30%, which would have affected both federal and local law enforcement agencies.
“The fact is Tom Kean, Jr. voted to defund the police, twice,” Altman spokesperson Rob West said. “Kean, Jr. loves to use law enforcement as a political shield to hide his own efforts to defund the police – and he has a public record of doing just that. So, does he support funding the Capitol Police now?”
The issue of law enforcement funding is one that has recently dominated the conversation in the 7th congressional district, New Jersey’s most competitive district. Kean’s allies have criticized Altman as an unreliable supporter of the police, noting in particular an old social media post utilizing the hashtag #DefundThePolice; Altman has consistently responded that she, unlike Kean, does not have a voting record that includes any anti-police funding votes.