WASHINGTON _ Former President Barack Obama doesn't want a California Republican running for Congress to use his name in campaign ads suggesting they worked together on policy during the Democrat's administration.
Former Rep. David Valadao, a Republican from Hanford, started airing an advertisement last month that said he was different from the members of Congress who engaged in partisan bickering, citing his work with the Obama administration on water issues.
Valadao is trying to retake his old seat from Rep. TJ Cox, D-Fresno. Cox unseated Valadao in 2018, and the rematch has become one of the most contentious congressional races in the country.
A voiceover in Valadao's ad says, "An independent problem solver, (Valadao) 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."
Katie Hill, the communications director for Obama's office, took issue with that description in a statement sent to McClatchy. Obama's office emphasized that Valadao during his three times in Congress sided with his party on the vast majority of votes.
"We strongly condemn David Valadao for resorting to distortion to falsely suggest President Obama's support _ especially given that President Obama has endorsed his opponent, TJ Cox," Hill said. "Valadao typically opposed President Obama's policies, even voting to repeal Obamacare and rip health care away from thousands of people in the Central Valley while turning his back on DREAMers."
Robert Jones, general consultant for Valadao's campaign, pointed out that the advertisement did not say that Obama had endorsed Valadao, merely that they had worked together on water. The ad only says that Valadao "worked with President Obama."
Similarly, the campaign said it isn't trying to assert that Obama and Valadao agreed on most policies.
"David is proud of his bipartisan record in Congress and while he didn't always agree with President Obama or President Trump on every issue, he always worked to find common ground when it was good for the Valley," said Andrew Renteria, campaign manager for Valadao. "As these campaign season attacks demonstrate, Washington D.C. suffers from a lack of compromise, not too much of it."
Valadao voted dozens of times to repeal Obamacare, Obama's signature health care policy. Valadao also voted for a Republican replacement of Obamacare that would've weakened protections for people with preexisting conditions.
However, Valadao was a co-sponsor of Democrats' DREAM Act, which would've granted a path to citizenship for immigrants brought into the country illegally as children.
Democrats have frequently pointed to 21 procedural votes that Valadao took as evidence he did not support the DREAM Act, but those party-line votes actually prevented Democrats from opening debate on unrelated language to bills being passed by the House _ a common tactic by the minority party in the House. The votes were not a straight up or down vote on the DREAM Act.
