Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) on Wednesday voted for a resolution authored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that would undermine a key part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
S.J. Res. 50 was ultimately defeated but not before Alabama’s junior senator joined 42 others in voting “yea.”
The resolution would have blocked an IRS and Treasury Department rule needed to ensure blue states could not implement “workarounds” to President Donald Trump’s landmark tax reform legislation, which has been widely credited with boosting the nation’s economy and Alabama’s economy to historic recent successes.
According to Roll Call, the Schumer measure Jones voted in favor of would have “disproportionately” benefited “blue state constituents whose state and local taxes tend to be higher.”
Alabama is certainly not one such state that would have reaped the rewards, but places like New York and California — where Jones receives the bulk of his campaign contributions — would have.
Hours after Jones’ vote on Wednesday, Schumer sent out an email for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) saying, “The most important race in 2020 isn’t the race for the White House — it’s the race for Senate control.”
“The future of everything we care about — from health care and gun safety to climate change and the Supreme Court — depends on who holds the Senate majority after this election,” Schumer added.
Jones, while not yet a member of the U.S. Senate at the time, spoke in opposition to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in late 2017 on the campaign trail.
Further, according to Politifact in 2017, “Jones’ campaign declined to answer our questions about whether Jones would support raising taxes and how he would pay for the programs he champions.”
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Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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