Tonight I had a Fact Check on two dueling ads. In part, they focus on Congressman Rick Boucher’s (D-Abingdon) voting record.
The Republican ad, paid for by a group called Americans for Job Security, claims that Boucher votes with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 96% of the time.
Boucher has asked area television stations to stop airing the ad because he claims that it is factually incorrect. Specifically, Boucher takes issue with the claim that he and Pelosi have nearly identical voting records.
Here’s a part of the letter he sent to WKPT-TV which was then later released by the Republican Party of Virginia: “The commercial claims that my votes align with those of the Democratic Speaker 96% of the time. This statement can never be supported since the speaker almost never votes and has no complete record against which my votes can be compared.”
As I noted in my Fact Check story, Boucher’s complaint depends on how you look at the numbers and it omits numbers that are not necessarily favorable to the congressman. While, he may not have voted with Speaker Pelosi 96% of the time, he did vote with the Democrats in the House 96% (according to both the washingtonpost.com and opencongress.org) and the Democratic agenda is in large part crafted by the House Democratic leadership which is run by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Finally, it’s worth noting that according to opencongress.org, which is cited in both the Republican ad and Boucher’s response ad, Boucher voted with Pelosi 91% of the time.
Posted by Jay Warren at 04:15 PM. Filed under: main •
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