Bee, NRCC attack Giffords on border bills

A day after U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Tucson) released a TV ad touting her record on border security, national Republicans and state Sen. Pres. Tim Bee (R-Tucson) are using votes Giffords cast in Congress to make the case that she isn't as tough as she claims.

"Gabby Giffords’ campaign is apparently suffering from a severe case of selective memory,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Brendan Buck in a press release. “While she likes to claim she is ‘tough’ on immigration, her record clearly states otherwise. Giffords can gab until she’s red in the face, but at the end of the day she is going to have to answer for her abysmal record on illegal immigration.”

Among the legislative accomplishments Giffords highlights in the new ad are efforts to put 3,000 more agents at the border and measures to stop drug trafficking.

However, Tim Bee, Giffords's opponent in the 8th Congressional District, is saying that other votes reveal her record to be less than stellar on border issues.

"Giffords is at it again," reads a release from the Bee campaign, "- talking one way in the district and voting he opposite in Congress."

Both the NRCC and the Bee campaign point to a string of votes, mainly made during the battle over Department of Homeland Security appropriations in June of 2007, that they say worked to weakend border security. They say legislation she voted against would have "kept bureaucratic and environmental obstacles from stopping construction of the border fence" and "guarantees that the money appropriated for building the border fence was actually spent on building the fence instead of being diverted to earmarks." 

The Bee campaign also criticized her for voting in favor of a spending bill that included a provision repealing the requirement for double-layered border fencing, and voted against legislation that would have made it tougher for illegal immigrants to receive government health benefits.

"In a typical Washington political gimmick, the NRCC has cherry-picked procedural votes that took place during debate and do not tell the whole story," said Eric Swedlund, communications director for the Giffords campaign, in an email to PolitickerAZ.com. "In fact, if the motion to recommit had passed, the bill would have failed, leaving no funding or mandate for fencing in the federal budget."

Swedlund repeated the assertions made in the Giffords ad - that she has fought for local law enforcement to be reimbursed for their anti-illegal immigration efforts and secured more border patrol agents for Arizona. He also wrote she "opposes amnesty for people who break the law."  

Referring again to the Republicans' charges, he wrote, "These typical attack politics are a far cry from the hard work necessary to make progress on securing the border and reforming our immigration laws," said Swedlund.