The Alabama RINO PAC, the political action committee supporting Katie Britt for U.S. Senate, released television and radio advertisements last week claiming that Britt’s opponent, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville), had a history of raising taxes.
New #ALSen: This TV ad hitting Rep. Mo Brooks (R-05) from the Alabama RINO PAC is going up on broadcast today.
“Mo Brooks means Mo Taxes” pic.twitter.com/PswU8ETR4P
— Matt Holt (@mattholt33) June 2, 2022
Earlier this week, Brooks refuted the claims saying they were “all absolutely categorically false.”
Wednesday on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program,” Katie Britt campaign spokesman Sean Ross defended the accusations against Brooks in the advertisements.
Responding to Brooks’ claim that the accusations in the spots were “false,” Ross said, “[T]hat’s just not true.”
“He voted to raise the state income tax, both the individual income tax and the corporate income tax in 1984,” Ross continued. “He voted again in 1988 to send an income tax raise to the voters in a referendum.”
Britt’s spokesman highlighted how most of the votes to increase taxes occurred during his time in the state legislature.
“[A]ll across his state legislative career you can look at, whether it’s raising pistol permit fees, raising hunting and fishing license fees, local sales taxes, local property taxes in certain counties, increasing the tax on gasohol, allowing counties to raise the gas tax, his state legislative career is marked with raising taxes,” Ross outlined.
Ross emphasized that most of the examples given in the commercials were not about Brooks’ time in Congress.
“He’s trying to talk about some of his congressional voting record and some of the ratings he has from interest groups in D.C. about his congressional voting record,” he said, “but that’s not what the ad is mainly about. Most of the ad is about the state legislative career.”
About the claim that Brooks voted against extending the Bush tax cuts, Ross admitted that was more of an “obscure issue” but also argued that the congressman couldn’t use that example to discount the other claims in the spots.
“I think he’s trying to use that explanation to essentially mask what the rest of the ad is talking about,” Ross said.
He then concluded that Brooks’ record revealed he should not be representing the Yellowhammer State in the U.S. Senate.
“I think Mo Brooks has a history of being a flip-flopping career politician,” he argued, “whether it’s on taxes or it’s on President Trump. I mean the same day he was begging for Donald Trump’s re-endorsement, he’s on the radio essentially doubling down on saying Donald Trump lies. When you’ve been in office for so long I think you lose sight of what’s right and you’re more focused on moving up in the next rung in your kind of political ladder. Look, I don’t really trust Congressman Brooks to remain consistent.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
