Newly elected Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) described a moderate approach to her defense- and border security-focused agenda in a Jan. 4 appearance on Fox News Sunday.
McSally defeated incumbent Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.), who served on the House armed services and homeland security committees, by just 167 votes after a recount last month. She addressed the narrow win in her morning show appearance, saying that “50 percent of the people didn’t vote for me” and therefore “they want me to focus on the things that unite us” rather than politically divisive issues.
McSally, who will be sworn in on Tuesday, said her constituents’ two top priorities are the economy and security. “So, you can expect me to be focusing on growing the economy and getting people back to work, but also the areas of security, border security in one of nine border districts [along the Mexican border]. I have two big military bases–one Army, one Air Force. 85,000 veterans. So those would be the focus areas.”
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked McSally about President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration in November and how the Republican party ought to respond this year, after taking control of the Senate and increasing its majority in the House. McSally responded that the root causes of the immigration problem need to be dealt with first, which for her district means border security.
“We’ve got transnational criminal organizations that are trafficking drugs and people, weapons and money in and out of our neighborhoods. We need intelligence-based operations and a better strategy to address this issue, because it is a public safety threat and a national security threat,” she said. “And the people that I’m talking to in my district, they want to revamp and modernize the legal immigration system so that if somebody wants to come here to work or they graduate from the University of Arizona with the Ph.D., they don’t go back to one of our competitors–we actually give them an opportunity to come here, work, pay taxes.”
McSally said Obama’s executive action addresses some symptoms of the immigration problem, but she hopes to see bipartisan cooperation on modernizing the legal immigration system and boosting border security.
A 22-year Air Force veteran, McSally said she looked forward to taking the lead on economic and security issues, and working both with fellow lawmakers and the president in a bipartisan manner to meet the needs of voters. Her time in uniform has made her “very solution oriented to get things done instead of being ideologically focused,” she said, and added she wished more veterans would run for Congress to continue serving their country.
“Those of us who serve, we took an oath of office that is the same exact oath that we’re about to take on Tuesday,” she said. “We’re very much about serving the country, but we need more veterans, especially at a time right now when the world is more dangerous. We have only got about 20 percent veterans, so that experience is going to be absolutely vital on the issues of national security, making sure our military is strong and capable to deal with the various threats that we are facing. But also in the military we’re very solution-oriented, we are very pragmatic. You know, you can’t be in the war you want to be in, you got to be in the war you’re in, and you’ve got to just get the job done.”
McSally, who was assigned to the House armed services and homeland security committees like her predecessor, will be joined by fellow veterans Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) and Steve Knight (R-Calif.) on the House Armed Services Committee (Defense Daily, Dec. 11). Zinke is a 23-year Navy veteran and a former commander with SEAL Team Six. McSally was the first woman to fly a combat aircraft into enemy territory after a ban was lifted in 1991. Knight joined the Army after graduating high school and served overseas in Germany.