Manzullo Takes Words Out of Primary Opponent Kinsinger’s Mouth and Critiques Them

A press release from Congressman Don Manzullo

“Over the last several months, my freshman classmates and I have been fighting to shake things up in Washington and change the conversation from how much to spend to how much to cut.”

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger — Dec. 15, 2011

IF THE FRESHMEN ARE CHANGING THE CONVERSATION ON SPENDING, REP. KINZINGER HASN’T BEEN LISTENING

Rep. Don Manzullo votes more often with freshmen conservatives

[WASHINGTON] – U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-11), who often touts the power of the conservative freshman class to “change the conversation” on spending in Washington, has actually opposed his classmates on many of the conservative votes they have taken to cut spending, a vote analysis shows.

Based on the 2011 legislative scorecard from Heritage for America (the political arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation), Kinzinger ranks #65 out of 85 GOP freshmen in the strength of his conservative rating [emphasis added].

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-16), whom Kinzinger is challenging in the March primary, is ranked #14 in the same analysis and compares much more similarly to the strong, conservative freshmen that Kinzinger claims to be.

The Heritage rankings that give Manzullo a much higher conservative score than Kinzinger confirm a previous analysis of all 949 roll call votes last year that shows Kinzinger voted 79 more times to spend an additional $209 billion more than Manzullo in 2011.

It also confirms why Manzullo was recently endorsed by the Illinois Conservatives, a group of 4,000 conservatives under age 35, and Illinois Family PAC, the largest conservative pro-family group in Illinois.

Manzullo also received a higher conservative score than Kinzinger in the 2011 legislative scorecard released last week by Americans for Prosperity, the premier free market grassroots organization committed to smaller government and free enterprise.

See below for the entire list of the Freshman class, along with Rep. Manzullo, and their conservative vote ratings:

This chart show Joe Walsh as the Illinois highest Americans for Prosperity scorer at 96%, Don Manzullo second at 83% and Randy Hultgren third at 80%. Adam Kinzinger was 4th, scoring 60%, too far down on the chart for me to reproduce.


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