| Juan Ciscomani’s bipartisan credentials are “misleading,” Tim Steller writes in his latest column for the Arizona Daily Star.
That’s because, “when it has mattered most, Ciscomani has fallen in line with Trump, supporting his most consequential and damaging policies” like drastic cuts to health care and food assistance programs, cost-hiking tariffs, and the reckless war in Iran.
As Steller writes, Ciscomani’s tenure can be defined as: “Brave when it didn’t matter as much, timid when it did.”
DCCC Spokesperson Lindsay Reilly:
“Juan Ciscomani is a spineless fraud who puts his D.C. party bosses first. Ciscomani cast key votes to gut Arizonans’ health care and food assistance, protect cost-hiking tariffs, and greenlight the war in Iran. Arizonans will hold him accountable this November.”
Read the column for yourself…
Arizona Daily Star: Tim Steller’s column: Ciscomani ‘bipartisan’ except when it mattered most
- When it has mattered most, Ciscomani has fallen in line with Trump, supporting his most consequential and damaging policies. Even when other Republicans dared to break ranks on key issues, Ciscomani toed the Trump line.
- On the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, on tariffs and on the war in Iran — votes that have defined the last two years — Ciscomani even raised concerns at times, but in the end voted with Trump anyway.
- Ciscomani’s bipartisanship: Brave when it didn’t matter as much, timid when it did.
- In the months before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed, Ciscomani penned letters demanding that Medicaid be protected. When it wasn’t, and the bill included more than $900 billion in cuts over 20 years (beginning after this November’s election), he voted for it anyway. The bill passed the House by one vote, 215-214.
- The bill also imposed new paperwork requirements and changes in eligibility for food-aid recipients in the SNAP program. The result: About 461,000 Arizonans, including 180,000 children, have lost food assistance since the bill was signed into law, largely because the new procedures are too onerous.
- With all these big downsides, you would think it at least helped cut the deficit, an issue Ciscomani has claimed as a top priority. But no, it is projected to add $4.2 trillion to the national debt by 2034.
- I would not have expected Ciscomani, a business Republican by nature, to support heavy-handed market interventions like [tariffs], but he adapted quickly after Trump’s early tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
- In February this year, six Republicans joined Democrats and voted to rescind tariffs on Canada. Ciscomani was not one of them. In fact, Democrats say he has voted nine times to support Trump’s tariffs, although some of those votes were on symbolic motions.
- From the beginning, Ciscomani has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Iran War and continues to defend it even as Americans’ support has dwindled.
- When it’s come up for a vote in the House, he has voted repeatedly against bills aiming to end the war, most recently on Sept. 15. That day, seven Republicans voted for the bill aiming to end the war, but Ciscomani didn’t.
- When courage was required to represent the district well and resist Trump’s worst policy excesses, Ciscomani didn’t have it.
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