Scott Brown Missed All Six Committee Hearings On Border Security

From all the attack ads former Sen. Scott Brown (R) has run against Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) one border security, you would think think Brown, now running for Senate in New Hampshire, had made it a habit of attending every Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearings on the border he could. But it turns out that despite being a member of that committee, he missed all six hearings on border security that he could attend, according to The Washington Post.

Brown missed five hearing since 2011 and he missed one hearing a year earlier, The Post reported, citing public records and congressional transcripts. Four of those missed meetings were full committee hearings and the other two were meetings as part of the subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Senators regularly miss committee hearings often because of conflicting committee hearings or scheduling conflicts. But Brown’s focus on border security on the campaign trail might cause someone to think that border security topics were his primary issue in the Senate.

Brown spokeswoman Elizabeth Guyton, in response to questions from the Post about him missing the committee meetings, instead pointed to an interview Brown did with the Boston Herald where he discussed the threat of the Islamic State.

“Senators have a tremendous amount of responsibilities there. I knew in my case I was on four committees, two subcommittees, a bunch of caucuses — and plus I was doing my National Guard duty, so I don’t think there’s ever an expectation to have 100 percent attendance,” Brown said in the interview.

Guyton didn’t respond to followup questions.

The TPM Polltracker average finds Shaheen leading Brown by 6.7 points.