Sinema’s Democratic Challenger Ruben Gallego Opposes Cutting Pentagon Spending

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Arizona Democrat Ruben Gallego introduced on Monday that he’s working for Senate in 2024, presumably towards centrist Impartial Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. In an announcement video posted to Twitter, Gallego speaks about rising up poor and being raised by a single immigrant mom, and the way he “stepped up” regardless of these challenges to be a father determine for his youthful brothers. Elected to Congress in 2014, Gallego has risen the ranks of the Democratic Get together and has chaired two subcommittees: the Home Armed Companies Subcommittee on Intelligence and Particular Operations, and the Pure Assets Subcommittee on Indigenous Individuals of the USA.

Gallego is mostly considered a progressive Democrat. He’s a member of the Medicare for All Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and he has a 97% lifetime voting rating on environmental points from the League of Conservation Voters. Nonetheless, there may be one challenge on which Gallego has repeatedly damaged rank along with his fellow progressive caucus members.

In Could 2020, dozens of Progressive Caucus members signed a letter to Home Armed Companies Committee Chairman Adam Smith and Rating Member Mac Thornberry urging them to authorize a decrease degree of funding for the annual Division of Protection finances. “We should stay centered on combating the coronavirus and never on growing army spending that already outpaces the subsequent 10 closest nations mixed,” the members wrote within the letter. Gallego was not among the many progressives signing the letter. Months later, the Home voted on an modification to the Protection finances authorization invoice from Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Mark Pocan that might have lowered the Pentagon’s finances by 10%, roughly $74 billion, and redirect it to a a grant program for well being care, housing, and different bills in cities with excessive ranges of poverty. Gallego voted against the modification.

Over the subsequent two years, Gallego voted two extra instances towards Democratic amendments to chop the Division of Protection finances by 10%, as soon as in September 2021 on an amendment provided by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and once more in July 2022 on an amendment that was proposed by Rep. Barbara Lee. Over the interval between the Pocan and Lee vote, extra members of Congress acquired behind the concept of a ten% Pentagon finances minimize, and the 2022 Lee modification ended up profitable help from a majority of Home Democrats and 14 Republicans. Nonetheless, Gallego was a “no.”

Spending on the Division of Protection makes up about 13% of the federal finances and accounts for about half of the discretionary spending that Congress doles out every year. In 2023, Congress handed a report giant Pentagon finances authorization of $858 billion. Many progressives consider that lowering the Protection Division’s finances is important for liberating up funding that might be used for issues like infrastructure investments, education schemes, and backed youngster care.

It’s unclear why Gallego opposed the amendments to scale back the Pentagon’s finances — his marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark — however a evaluation of his marketing campaign fundraising historical past reveals the votes have been in keeping with the monetary pursuits of a few of his greatest donors.

Gallego’s prime company PAC donor over the course of his congressional profession has been Honeywell Worldwide, a North Carolina-based multi-industry conglomerate that’s among the many largest U.S. protection contractors. Honeywell’s PAC has donated $74,000 to Gallego’s marketing campaign and management PAC, in accordance with Federal Election Fee information. In 2020, Honeywell was awarded a Division of Protection contract worth up to $3.5 billion for manufacturing, sustainment and engineering providers in help of a brand new Air Drive navigation system.

One other of Gallego’s greatest donors is Raytheon, the corporate that pulls within the second most income from Protection contracts, in accordance with Defense News. Raytheon’s PAC has given Gallego’s marketing campaign and management PAC $41,500. Different giant protection contractors whose PACs have made substantial donations to Gallego embrace Northrop Grumman ($36,500). Normal Atomics ($30,000), and Normal Dynamic ($29,500). Since 2015, Gallego has obtained $267,000 from varied protection firm PACs, in accordance with OpenSecrets.

Whereas Gallego hasn’t voted to scale back the Pentagon finances, in a number of years he acquired language added to the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act that requires the U.S. to retain a minimal degree of troops in sure overseas international locations. In 2018, Gallego launched an amendment to the NDAA that was adopted requiring that U.S. lively responsibility forces in South Korea not fall under 22,000 troops with no certification by the Secretary of Protection. The subsequent yr, he secured a rise of that quantity to twenty-eight,500 American troops. In 2020, he secured passage of a similar amendment requiring the U.S. to have no less than 9,500 troops stationed in Germany.

One other challenge Gallego has championed throughout work on the NDAA has been to cease the Air Drive from retiring any A-10 Warthog fighter jets. In early 2020, the Air Drive notified Congress that it was planning to retire some older Warthog jets, a plan that was strongly criticized by Gallego throughout a committee listening to. In response, Gallego added a provision to the NDAA that his committee debated that summer time that halted the Air Drive’s plans to retire the planes. Since then, Northrop Grumman was awarded a $186 million contract to increase its engineering help for the plane for an additional ten years, and Raytheon gained a $46 million contract to modernize the A-10’s outdated avionics system.

Requested lately by Defense News about Home Republicans’ deal to scale back Protection spending made across the election of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) as speaker, Gallego mentioned the finances might go down. “You don’t have to take a meat cleaver to the protection finances; it is best to take a scalpel to it,” Gallego mentioned. “There’s all the time, I feel, some legacy platforms that might be retired.”

The hawkish pro-Israel foyer has additionally embraced Gallego and within the 2022 election cycle started offering him substantial marketing campaign funding. The PAC of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) gave Gallego $7,900 and earmarked particular person donations for him totaling $18,800. One other pro-Israel group known as Professional-Israel America PAC, which acts as a conduit for contributions and has ties to AIPAC, collected $20,800 in donations from people for Gallego within the 2021-22 cycle.

Gallego has additionally directed cash to an excellent PAC deeply tied to AIPAC that has spent tens of millions of {dollars} to oppose the elections of progressive Democrats who they consider haven’t been sufficiently supportive of financially aiding Israel in its conflicts with Palestine with none situations. Gallego is the chairman of the Committee for Hispanic Causes’ BOLD PAC, which since 2020 has donated $170,000 to an excellent PAC known as Democratic Majority for Israel, or DMFI. Run by former AIPAC officers, DMFI has develop into a strong pressure in Democratic primaries prior to now two election cycles. The PAC has made $15 million of impartial expenditures since 2020, with its greatest targets of damaging promoting having been Bernie Sanders, Nina Turner, Jamaal Bowman, and Marie Newman.