March 21, 2025 10:16 AM UTC

GOP Sics Lawyers On Billboards Stating The Obvious

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• by: Colorado Pols

A story from the Phil Anschutz-owned Washington Examiner via the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog is raising lawfare censorship concerns after lawyers for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) successfully prevailed upon billboard advertiser Lamar Advertising to take down billboards targeting vulnerable Republican members of Congress including Colorado’s Rep. Gabe Evans on what amounts to  flimsy editorial grounds:

A vendor in charge of displaying House Democrats’ billboards accusing vulnerable Republicans of voting to cut Medicaid and give tax breaks to Elon Musk took them down after House Republicans’ campaign arm sent a cease-and-desist letter on Wednesday.

The House Majority Forward launched six billboards in vulnerable Republican districts — those of Reps. Gabe Evans (R-CO), Don Bacon (R-NE), Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA), Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), Jen Kiggans (R-VA), and Rob Wittman (R-VA), on Tuesday.

And here’s where the NRCC’s cease-and-desist demand dives into the weeds for cover: claiming that these vulnerable Republicans technically haven’t voted to “cut Medicaid,” at least not yet:

“​​Medicaid has not been cut by the Federal government,” NRCC’s letter, obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner, stated. “No Member of Congress has voted for cuts to Medicaid. House Majority Forward can only point to wishful speculation that cuts could occur sometime somewhere in the future— they cannot point to any cuts that have already taken place.”

“House Majority Forward’s message willfully ignores the fact that their Republican targets have publicly voiced their support for Medicaid and perpetuates false claims to the contrary,” the letter added.

The toehold for this highly misleading assertion that “no member of Congress has voted for cuts to Medicaid” is the fact that the budget resolution passed by House Republicans directs the overseeing committees to identify the specific cuts required to meet their targeted reductions in forthcoming legislation. Committees like Rep. Gabe Evans’ Energy and Commerce Committee are working on those bills now. The problem with using this to deny that programs like Medicaid will inevitably be cut is that every honest analysis of the budget resolution shows clearly that cutting Medicaid, not “waste and abuse” but throwing thousands of people off the coverage rolls, is the only way those prescribed cuts are going to happen.

So yes, Gabe Evans and the GOP-controlled House voted to cut Medicaid and give billionaires tax cuts. And if they expect to meet the targets they set for themselves, they’ll be voting to cut Medicaid again, next time with the details.

While some outdoor advertising companies have strict policies against political billboards of any kind, Lamar Advertising in particular has had a reputation over the years of not only allowing such billboards but also being relatively permissive about the displayed messages. If they can now be persuaded to editorially intervene in billboard art based on questionable objections from Republican lawyers…that’s a change for the worse.

Either way, soon the NRCC’s denial will be moot. The math is not going to change, and voters won’t need a billboard to know who to blame.