GOP Sen. Cassidy warns of “true colors” test
- Mike Allen, author of Axios AM
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — one of the few Republicans who voted both to convict President Trump and to approve the infrastructure deal — told me in an “Axios on HBO” interview:
- “People assume that if you're moderate in tone and you wish to connect with others for a common goal of improving our country in some way, you don't have true colors — whatever those colors are supposed to be, red or blue.”
After Cassidy became one of seven Republican senators to convict President Trump just before he left office, the Louisiana Republican Party voted to censure the sitting senator.
The big picture: The American Conservative Union says that for both last year and for his career, Cassidy has an 83% conservative voting rating, showing he’s a rock-solid conservative.
- Cassidy sometimes gets cast as a moderate, which drives him crazy.
- “I'm a conservative who happens to be a senator,” he said during an interview in Chalmette, La. “The only way you get something done to advance our country is to work with other people.”
- “I've learned that lesson the hard way,” Cassidy added. “And if I can work with other people and make our country better, then I'm a conservative who's got his job done.
Referring to a constituent whose home was damaged by Hurricane Ida, Cassidy said the man was “excited because his kids may move home — because of a program that I've been helped, that I've been able to help craft, which prioritizes communities such as the community in which he lives.”
- “I'm doing my job,” the senator added. “Now, I may take some flack. But that's OK.”