Hillary Clinton’s running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) failed to show up to vote for Zika funding in the Senate, after calling for Republican leadership to end the Congressional recess early in order to vote on new Zika legislation.
“Congress should not be in recess when Zika is advancing. We ought to go back and call an emergency session,” Kaine stated while campaigning in Florida in August.
On Tuesday when the Senate reconvened, Democrats blocked legislation that would fund efforts to fight Zika due to a GOP effort that would prevent money toward contraception from Planned Parenthood in order to fight the spread of the mosquito-borne disease, which can be sexually transmitted.
Tuesday’s vote was a reconsideration of a bill that Democrats had previously rejected in late June and Kaine’s position hasn’t changed, as he previously blasted the effort against Planned Parenthood.
“The House put what we call a poison pill in it. They cared more about Planned Parenthood than they did Zika. Folks, Planned Parenthood is not a public health emergency. Planned parenthood is an important health provider,” Kaine stated while campaigning in Florida.
But Republican National Committee spokesperson Ninio Fetalvo says Kaine’s call to end recess in order to vote on Zika funding, but then not appearing for Tuesday’s vote is “hypocritical.”
“Since the start of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Americans have found her to be untrustworthy, dishonest, and hypocritical. Now her running mate Tim Kaine is doing his best impression of her double-talk, unable to pull himself off the campaign trail to attend a vote for the crucial Zika funding that Floridians desperately need and that he himself demanded last month,” Fetalvo criticized.