Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke has some explaining to do!
Democrat voters in 2022 don't like Russia but Irish Bob voted to protect Putin in 2014.
Uh oh!
In the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014, Democrats and Republicans in Congress overwhelmingly rallied around measures to condemn the Kremlin’s actions and provide military and economic aid to Ukraine’s government.
In that era of divided government, pushing back on Russia was a rare area of bipartisan consensus. But a small group of lawmakers—usually a dozen or fewer—routinely opposed those bills. One of them was Beto O’Rourke, then a first-term Democratic congressman from Texas.
Following Russia’s February 2014 incursion in Crimea, O’Rourke was one of just two Democrats to vote down several Ukraine-related measures, including a broad aid package—which included $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine and support for the country’s defenses—that passed overwhelmingly. O’Rourke was also one of 12 lawmakers to vote against promoting U.S. media like Radio Free Europe and Voice of America in the region.
In December 2014, O’Rourke was one of 10 House members to vote against a symbolic resolution that called out Russian President Vladimir Putin for “carry[ing] out a policy of aggression against neighboring countries aimed at political and economic domination.”
The lone Democrat usually joining O’Rourke in voting against these measures, then-Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida, praised Russia’s internationally condemned annexation as a “a virtually bloodless transfer of power." They were often joined, too, by then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who was so close to the Kremlin that his ties warranted investigation by the FBI and the Senate Intelligence Committee.