Griffith hits Boucher on vote to adjourn

September 30, 2010

WYTHE CO., Va. — A vote Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives reverberated Thursday in Virginia’s 9th District. Republican challenger Morgan Griffith hit Democratic incumbent Rick Boucher for voting to adjourn without extending tax cuts that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

Boucher says the vote was purely procedural, the controversy a “non-issue.”

Griffith took his bid for Boucher’s seat to the Wythe County Livestock Exchange Thursday afternoon. There he campaigned with a prominent Republican ally, former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George Allen.

On Wednesday’s vote, Griffith said, “He had the power in his hand to change what was happening in Washington on one critical issue, tax increases, and he let it slip though his fingers.”

The motion to adjourn, Griffith noted, passed by a single vote.

Boucher was in Washington Thursday, but in a telephone interview he told News 7, “If there was ever a non-issue, this is it.” Boucher says he supports extending the tax cuts for everyone while the nation recovers from a major recession.

The vote to adjourn, Boucher said, was purely a procedural matter. “And the fact he is raising it now,” Boucher said, “and trying to make it something that it’s not shows that he doesn’t have much to talk about in this campaign.”

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