GOP Rep. Maria Salazar Takes Credit For Children’s Hospital Funding She Opposed

Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) this month celebrated delivering $1.4 million to a children’s hospital in her district, even attending a photo op where she handed over massive checks to leadership and staff at the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.

Except Salazar voted against the bill that provided this money.

“The doctors and staff at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital are nothing short of miracle workers, and I am proud to support their work in Congress,” Salazar declared in a Feb. 8 press release. “I am thrilled to have secured over $1.4 million to provide cutting-edge medicine to children and help the hospital confront our nation’s growing mental health crisis.”

She took credit for securing this money on Twitter, too, and shared a photo of herself handing over the big checks.

But as her own press release states, this money came from the Fiscal Year 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act ― a bill she opposed. Virtually every House Republican voted against this bill, which provided $1.7 trillion to fund the federal government.

You can see her “no” vote here.

What’s strange is that Salazar is not just taking credit for money that she voted against, she openly cites where this funding came from — and it’s very easy to look up her vote on this bill. It’s as if she is just hoping nobody notices.

Salazar spokeswoman Mariza Smajlaj said congresswoman may have opposed the bill that provided funding for the children’s hospital, but she made sure the bill had that money in it.

“Congresswoman Salazar secured this funding by working directly with Niklaus Children’s Hospital and working to get this included in federal funding legislation,” Smajlaj told HuffPost in a statement. “Unfortunately, the final bill also included wasteful measures and was far too large at $1.7 trillion.”

She also cited a Feb. 7 op-ed by Salazar, in which the congresswoman says she “fought to get Miami’s priorities funded” into the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 — even though she opposed the bill.

“I did not agree with that shameful practice or with wasteful measures, so I voted against the bill in final passage,” Salazar wrote in her op-ed.

In other words, the Florida congresswoman wants credit both for getting money for the children’s hospital and for opposing the bill that that money came in.

A spokesperson for Nicklaus Children’s Hospital did not respond to a request for comment.

It’s not the first time Salazar has been caught taking credit for bills she opposed.

Last month, a CBS News Miami reporter called her out for doing this with two other bills, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Both of those bills delivered money to Salazar’s district that she touted, despite her votes against them.

Pressed on those votes, Salazar said she forgot about them.

”Listen I, that was, I think, last cycle. I cannot really remember right now,” she said.