Vote now in the Final Round!
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Democratic Party today announces the beginning of Trade Madness, a three-week long series highlighting the records of all three GOP Senate candidates in support of disastrous trade deals.
As the Statehouse session ends and Hoosiers’ attentions shift to the Senate race and the NCAA tournament, Trade Madness will feature a bracket asking Hoosiers to pick which GOP Senate candidate has had the Maddest trade moment. The bracket has three regions, one each for Rep. Braun, Congressman Messer, and Congressman Rokita. Throughout the next three weeks, Hoosiers will have the opportunity to vote online between each candidate’s moment. After a final round, the IDP will announce the candidate that Hoosiers have decided had the Maddest Moment.
Voting in the final round is open now and will continue through Wednesday.
Each week of the tournament, the IDP will examine the record of a different candidate on trade policy and expose their hypocritical history of support for bad trade deals and practices. Hoosiers deserve to know where Congressmen Messer and Rokita and Rep. Braun stand when it comes to their records of supporting harmful trade policies.
Here are a few highlights of what the IDP will feature about each candidate over the next few weeks:
- Congressman Messer tried to showcase a new philosophy during the most recent debate that was a remarkable shift from his history of support for unfair trade deals. He’s claimed that our biggest problem with China was that we don’t have a free trade agreement with them and tried to stop efforts to label the country as a currency manipulator. He also voted at least twice to block legislation that would stop tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.
- Congressman Rokita took $3,000 from United Technologies PAC and then hung onto the money in the wake of UTC subsidiary Carrier’s decision to ship Hoosier jobs to Mexico. He repeatedly voted in favor of a massive new Asian trade deal, claiming it “paves the way” for even more unfair deals. He also failed to crack down on currency manipulation and voted at least twice to block legislation that would stop tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and to stop corporate inversions.
- During his time in the statehouse, Rep. Braun voted against an amendment that penalized companies like Carrier who took tax breaks from the Indiana government to invest in Hoosier workers and then shipped jobs overseas. During the GOP Senate debate, he flip-flopped and claimed he didn’t know where the manufacturers for his company were from. An AP report stated that Rep. Braun frequently imports foreign parts from China for his auto parts distributing company.
“Congressmen Messer and Rokita and Rep. Braun have all routinely supported disastrous trade policies that rig the playing field against Hoosier workers and make it easier for corporations to ship jobs out of the U.S.,” said Michael Feldman, spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party. “As Hoosiers begin to tune into the Senate race, they deserve to know about the egregious trade records of all three GOP candidates and their history of siding with large corporations over Indiana workers. Hoosiers filling out their brackets this March will realize that when it comes to trade, the GOP candidates aren’t just wrong – they have plenty of moments of Madness.”
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