WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow spent a recent two-week break from Washington highlighting her accomplishments and appearing at events in her Louisiana district, as is typical of Congress members out on recess.
She was “thrilled,” she said June 30 on Twitter, about the Ouachita River and Louisiana Highway 165 Multimodal Connectivity and Safety Project, which had just received a $10.5 million grant from the federal government. “Honored to be a part of the process to bolster economic development and accessibility for this growing industry in the Fifth District!” she tweeted.
The funding came from the $1.3 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, according to a statement by U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — a bill Letlow originally didn’t support.
When the IIJA was being debated in Congress in the fall of 2021, Letlow, R-Start, was very vocal in her opposition. “There is no language that I found that will guarantee those dollars will come to the 5th District and serve the unserved and underserved areas of the 5th District,” Letlow told KNOE-TV in Monroe on Sept. 25, 2021.
So Letlow voted no. But then, so did the other four Republican House members and Sen. John N. Kennedy, R-Madisonville. U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, and Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, were the only members of Louisiana’s delegation to back the legislation that directed $4.5 billion, as of June 2023, to over 245 Louisiana projects. Since the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act became law, approximately $3.4 billion has been set aside for transportation needs and roughly $258 million has been set aside for clean-water projects in Louisiana, according to Cassidy’s office.
Letlow’s press office said Friday that she had long supported the program’s annual appropriation and had written letters in support of the grant. “The Congresswoman wrote a letter of support and worked diligently with the (Ouachita) Port to bring this grant to fruition, as this funding directly impacts the Fifth District of Louisiana,” the statement said.
Letlow is not alone in taking a bow for local funding tied to a bill she did not back.
In fact, news reports say that a number of Republican opponents of the infrastructure bill did the same, including Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Vanity Fair recalled that Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, said in 2021 the infrastructure bill failed to give Alabama a “fair slice of the pie” and that it saddled Alabama taxpayers with more debt. But last week, he praised the “crucial funds to boost ongoing broadband efforts” his state would receive.
The magazine also quoted Biden’s take on the matter in a Chicago speech on June 28. “Most of them want to get rid of it all. But they don’t hesitate to take credit for it,” the president said of Republicans.
Newsweek reported that former Illinois Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger was angered by his former colleagues’ new praise of the bill. He backed the bill in 2021 and was roundly criticized by Republicans for doing so. “I can’t say how upsetting it is: I voted for this money and took a lot of heat from GOP,” he tweeted.
Rep. Garret Graves, R- Baton Rouge, who voted against the bill in 2021 and said he would oppose it again today, defended fellow Republicans.
“I’ve seen a number of comments from the White House where they’ve criticized members for taking credit or, I don’t know, issuing news releases or going to ribbon cuttings or whatever else. But when grants become available, you’re damn right I’m going go out there and go fight for our projects. That’s my job and if I don’t do that, that’s not representing,” he said Thursday.
Graves said he opposes the Infrastructure Act on several grounds. Notably, he feels Louisiana failed to receive its fair share of the federal largesse.
Also, he said, the spending was done without consideration of supply chains and other factors that drove up costs and contributed directly to the country’s inflation. Inflation spurred the federal government earlier this year to raise the amount of money it could borrow in order to pay its debts. That situation led to showdown negotiations with the White House; Graves was involved.
“We were wildly successful in debt ceiling negotiations with the largest rescission (of spending) in American history,” Graves said.
Cassidy said Thursday that he backed the infrastructure bill because of the billions of dollars it made available for coastal restoration, flood mitigation, broadband internet and other infrastructure. “For Louisiana to grow and for our young people to stay in our state to raise a family, we needed this bill. How can anyone who loves Louisiana be against these things?” he said.
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