Republican Boycotts GOP Event Because Senator Ted Cruz Is Going

Long Island Congressman Peter King won’t attend a Republican state dinner because Ted Cruz will be there, and Cruz refused funding after Hurricane Sandy.

“I don’t think we should be acknowledging people who are voting against us in our hour of need,” said King to BuzzFeed. “Once I found it was him…I decided not to go. I don’t know if I would have gone or not because of scheduling things, but that made it easy once I found out it was Ted Cruz.”

As a newly-minted senator in January, Cruz voted against a slew of measures, including one that provided aid to victims devastated by Hurricane Sandy last October. In a statement, Cruz explained that he couldn’t vote for the package because “cynical politicians in Washington could not resist loading up this relief bill with billions in new spending utterly unrelated to Sandy.”

The $51 billion aid package ended up passing both houses of Congress despite similar protestations from fiscal conservatives.

By: jybarz