Republicans Who Backed Biden's Agenda Help Shift Infrastructure Away from Their Voters, Toward Blue Districts

Thirteen House Republicans, along with 19 Senate Republicans, are helping shift infrastructure projects away from their own districts and toward blue, Democrat districts when they voted to support President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.

The bill includes the Digital Equity Act that expands broadband to American communities that currently lack access to the internet due to either poverty, dilapidated infrastructure, or their geographical location such as rural communities.

Though, as Breitbart News reported, the broadband expansion will be partially based on how many nonwhite residents and newly arrived immigrants a particular community has. Communities with large foreign-born populations and are majority-minority will be first in line for the expansion.

In effect, the less white an area is and the more immigrants who reside there, the quicker that community is to secure broadband expansion. Because Democrats tend to represent these communities, Republican votes for the bill serve to penalize their constituents for their region’s demographic makeup.

Nineteen GOP senators voted with Democrats to approve expanding broadband across the United States based on racial quotas https://t.co/3OqBSnU6DD

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 13, 2021

Demographic data calculated by Breitbart News shows that the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bill represent districts where white Americans are the overwhelming majority and where native-born Americans represent anywhere from 69 to 98 percent of their districts — an indication that their constituents are likely to be some of the last communities in line for broadband expansion.

For instance, Reps. John Katko (R-NY), Tom Reed (R-NY), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), and Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) represent districts in New York that are majority white with few foreign-born residents.

Malliotakis’s district, which includes Staten Island and a portion of southern Brooklyn, is 69 percent white and 69 percent native-born. Katko’s district, which includes Syracuse in upstate New York, is 83 percent white and 94 percent native-born.

Reed’s district sits on the border of western New York and Pennsylvania, an area that is 90 percent white and 96 percent native-born while Garbarino’s district that encompasses the South Shore of Long Island is 74 percent white and 83 percent native-born.

Lawmakers from more rural districts, whose communities would benefit the most from broadband expansion except for the racial and immigration quotas in the bill, include Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE) whose district is 81 percent white and 91 percent native-born.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) represents all of Alaska, a state that is 64 percent white and 92 percent native-born. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s (R-PA), district similarly, is 85 percent white and 89 percent native-born while Rep. David McKinley’s (R-WV) district is 94 percent white and 98 percent native-born.

Others who voted for the bill despite almost certainly shifting broadband expansion away from their districts include Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) whose district is 74 percent white and 90 percent native-born, Fred Upton (R-MI) whose district is 85 percent white and 91 percent native-born, Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) whose district is 89 percent white and 95 percent native-born, Chris Smith (R-NJ) whose district is 86 percent and 88 percent native-born, and Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) whose district is 93 percent white and 94 percent native-born.

Meanwhile, 28 of the 30 most majority-minority congressional districts — all of which stand to benefit the most from the bill’s broadband expansion via racial and immigration quotas — are represented by Democrats across Texas, California, Florida, Illinois, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Michigan, and New York.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here. 

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