In Deceptive Ad, Lamar Alexander Claims He 'Voted to End Amnesty'

In his final ad before Thursday’s GOP Senate primary against Joe Carr, the state representative who has hammered Alexander for his vote for the Senate’s amnesty bill last year, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) claims he “voted to end amnesty.”

“Last year, I voted to end amnesty,” Alexander claims in the ad. “Last week, I voted against President Obama’s immigration bill.”

But even after law enforcement officials warned him that the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill would worsen the border crisis, Alexander voted for it. The Senate bill provided a pathway to citizenship for nearly all of the country’s illegal immigrants. And when Alexander had a chance to help Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) kill the Senate’s border bill last week, he was absent, which means he neither voted for nor against it. 

Alexander’s ad says rule #312 from his book states, “Don’t believe anything new that you hear” in the final weeks of a campaign. Conservatives in Tennessee might wonder if that rule applies to his final ad.