Senate

Heller hits GOP colleagues over missing votes

by Jordain Carney - 10/27/15 3:40 PM ET

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) on Tuesday slammed his Republican colleagues who are running for president for skipping a vote to campaign, after his amendment to a cybersecurity bill narrowly failed.

“Personal ambition should come second to fighting for Americans’ liberties on the Senate floor,” Heller tweeted Tuesday, adding that “too many presidential/gubernatorial candidates are off campaigning.”

{mosads}His comments came after his amendment to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) failed by a 47-49 vote. His amendment would have bolstered the government’s standard for personal data scrubbing.

Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Rand Paul (Ky.), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and David Vitter (La.) each missed the vote on Heller’s amendment. Cruz, Paul and Rubio are running for the Republican presidential nomination, while Vitter is running for governor in his home state.

It’s unclear whether their attendance would have changed the ultimate result on Heller’s amendment, but Paul and Cruz have voiced concerns this year on privacy during the Senate’s cyber and surveillance debate.

Alex Burgos, Rubio’s communications director, said that Rubio would have voted against Heller’s amendment.

Heller targeted Paul specifically, adding that the 2016 hopeful “would’ve done a better job for the people of NV by voting here on #privacy instead of skipping votes” for an appearance on a local PBS station in Nevada, where Paul campaigned Tuesday.

The Kentucky Republican has missed relatively few votes this year, compared to his 2016 presidential competitors. He’s missed seven votes this year, according to GovTrack; Rubio has missed 92 and Cruz has missed 63.

—Updated Wednesday at 11:04 a.m.

Tags Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act Dean Heller Marco Rubio Rand Paul Ted Cruz