Leonard Lance Throws “Weight” Behind Tom Kean Jr.
Leonard Lance, who lost his seat due in part to his extreme voting record that was out of step with the district, endorsed Tom Kean Jr. this week.
Lance and Kean Jr. are kindred spirits. Both men backed efforts to rip health care from away New Jerseyans and raise the costs of prescription drugs, constantly putting special interest donors funding their careers ahead of their communities.
You’ll recall, Leonard Lance had a terrible health care record, voting more than 60 times to either fully repeal the Affordable Care Act or gut its core provisions once saying, “our actions have laid the necessary groundwork for a full repeal and replacement of Obamacare with a new administration in 2017.” He also repeatedly voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
Lance also failed to keep the state and local tax deduction cap out of the 2017 GOP Tax bill. The Star-Ledger Editorial Board’s Tom Moran said: “The tax bill is an assault on blue states, and Lance’s objections didn’t stop it.”
So why would Tom Kean Jr., who will try to convince the same voters that rejected Lance that he is a “different” kind of Republican, seek and accept the endorsement of someone with Lance’s record? Well, because that’s his record too, down to their shared service of special interest donors, with both taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
DCCC Spokesperson Christine Bennett released the following statement:
“The failed former Congressman and Tom Kean Jr. have a lot in common: both support the Republican agenda of ripping away health care from New Jersey families and put special interest donors ahead of their constituents. On one hand, Kean Jr. wants us to believe he is different from his party and on the other, Kean Jr. actively seeks and accepts the endorsement of party-insiders who have done nothing but jack up our taxes and allowed drug companies to raise the costs of prescription drugs. Voters rejected Lance’s brand of politics and governance in 2018 and will similarly reject Kean Jr. come November.”
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