For Immediate Release	Contact: Alexandra Booze 202-467-5318
January 29, 2014	Leslie Paige 202-467-5300

 

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) expressed its surprise, disappointment and staunch opposition to the Arizona Republican Party’s censure of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), apparently based on a voting record they perceive as being insufficiently conservative.  The resolution to censure was approved on January 25, 2014 after state committee members claimed Sen. McCain campaigns as a conservative, but lends his support to liberal Democrats on issues such as immigration and funding the federal healthcare law.

CCAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Taxpayers have few friends more dedicated to their cause than John McCain.  He has a consistent record of supporting limited government and lower taxes that is rare for a member of Congress who has been in Washington for more than a few terms in office, and he has displayed his conservative credentials time and time again.  The state party censure serves no purpose other than to perpetuate the perception that the Republican Party is dysfunctional and disorganized, as well as doing damage to the entire conservative movement.  Rather than helping to achieve the conservative goal of smaller government and lower taxes, the vote to censure Sen. McCain encourages the big spenders in Washington, Arizona and elsewhere to continue and expand their rampant abuse of the taxpayer’s money.”

In CCAGW’s 2012 Congressional Ratings, Senator McCain’s votes earned him a 95 percent rating, making him a Taxpayer Hero for the twenty-first time in his career.  The 2012 rating was the third highest score in the Senate, tied with then-Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.), and it was 13 percentage points higher than Republican Representative Paul Gosar, whose score was 82 percent.  Other national conservative organizations, such as the National Taxpayers Union, which ranked him as number 11 in the Senate in 2012; and the Club for Growth, which ranked him as number seven in the Senate in 2012 (tied with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.) have consistently ranked Senator McCain as one of the most conservative members in Congress.  If Sen. McCain is insufficiently conservative, that would mean every Republican member of Congress who scored lower than him on any of the foregoing ratings should also be censured by the Arizona Republican Party or their own respective state parties.

In addition to Sen. McCain’s continued fight against wasteful government spending, he was one of the original and most outspoken crusaders against congressional earmarks, which he began well before other members of Congress joined the fight.  Indeed, in the 2010 campaign, now-Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said that Sen. McCain is “a man who has been fighting earmarks and shaming his colleagues over their pork barrel spending for years.”  In the latest example of how Sen. McCain continues to lead the fight against wasteful spending, on January 16, 2014, during floor consideration of the fiscal year 2014 omnibus appropriations bill, he lambasted appropriators, claiming they overstepped their bounds by a flawed omnibus process that left the bill “wide open for pork.” 

“Instead of censuring a taxpayer hero like Sen. McCain, the Arizona Republican party should focus on improving the state delegation as a whole, which received a 69 percent overall rating in CCAGW’s 2012 Congressional Ratings,” said Schatz.  “John McCain is a man of great integrity as well as a great ally of CCAGW and taxpayers everywhere.  He deserves respect and congratulations for a job well done.  Arizonans should be confident he will continue to be on their side in the upcoming battles over taxes and spending.” 

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.