Roy Blunt Doubles Down On False Claims About Record As House Leader

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-K Street) was on KMOX's Mark Reardon Show yesterday, talking about why he's awesome, why Democrats are dummies, etc. As he has in the past, Blunt made the demonstrably false claim that he and the House GOP leadership never passed bills without Democratic votes.

When we were in the majority, we were always part of such small majorities that we never passed a bill -- now you can win some money at this after work today wherever you go -- we never passed a bill that didn't have Democrats vote for it.  Not one time. Not one time.

And we probably never passed a bill that some of our our more moderate Republicans didn't vote against it because their district.  But we always had to reach out. We didn't have this potential to just do whatever we wanted to do.  And even when we would send bills to the Senate, as we did over and over again on medical liability reform and associated health plans, there have never been in a hundred years sixty elected Republican Senators in the Senate at the same time.

Listen:

I hope no one took his bet. 

Blunt's revisionist history just doesn't hold water.  In 2004, the Associated Press wrote the Blunt, Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom Delay were "determined to advance their priorities even without a single Democratic vote." 

For example, consider the 2006 budget for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.  The conference report for that bill passed in November 2005 with zero Democrats in support.  That's one. 

Alternatively, here are more than 130 other votes to consider in which zero Republicans voted against the GOP leadership, and zero Democrats voted with the Republicans.  Furthermore, there are most certainly an additional subset of votes in which a small group of Republicans peeled off and voted with a unified Democratic minority.

Image credit: CBS News