When Utah's new Republican Representative and tea party darling Mia Love cast the first vote of her House career in favor of re-electing Speaker John Boehner supporters began to wonder — just want kind of tea is Mia pouring?
Love, a Haitian-American and the first black female Republican elected to the House, shocked her ultra-conservative backers when she went against the 25-member hard-liner revolt against Boehner and voted for him,
The Washington Post notes.
She was assailed on Twitter with comments like: "If this is an example of how Mia Love will be in Congress, she'll be done in 2 years."
Love responded in an
email to The Washington Examiner:
"There were no qualified or notable campaigns for speaker within the Republican Party other than John Boehner. Casting a vote for a candidate who has not actively campaigned and does not have the support to be speaker is an indirect vote for Nancy Pelosi, and I will not vote for Nancy Pelosi.
"There will be a time and a place for me to stand as a lone voice of dissension, but the vote for the speaker is not that place,” Love said. “For me to be an effective congressman over the next two years it is important for me to be on the side of the elected speaker."
Although Love won the endorsement of FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Express during her campaign, it's not the first time her tea party values have been called into question.
The conservative blog
The Shark Tank commented: "Part of her campaign promise was to repeal and replace Obamacare, yet she voted for the man (Boehner) who led the House to fully fund the healthcare law. It seems she will not be the conservative leader people had hoped she would be and just another establishment follower."
During her campaign, Love, at times, even appeared to be trying to distance herself from the tea party tag, commenting: "I consider myself a Republican in the state of Utah who represents everyone. People try to put labels on you, and I don’t believe in labels,"
The Blaze reported.
Love also has come under conservative fire for joining the Democrat-heavy Congressional Black Caucus after she blasted the group in the past, saying: "It's demagoguery. They sit there and ignite emotions and ignite racism when there isn't. They use their positions to instill fear. Hope and change is turned into fear and blame — fear that everybody is going to lose everything and blaming Congress for everything instead of taking responsibility,"
The Daily Caller noted.
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