Ted Cruzs claim that two-thirds of the Hurricane Sandy bill had nothing to do with Sandy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/29/ted-cruzs-claim-that-two-thirds-of-the-hurricane-sandy-bill-had-nothing-to-do-with-sandy/?utm_term=.589ec0d9d749

“The problem with that particular bill is it became a $50 billion bill that was filled with unrelated pork. Two-thirds of that bill had nothing to do with Sandy.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), interview with NBC’s Katy Tur, Aug. 28, 2017

Hypocrisy watch! Now that Houston and much of southeastern Texas is swamped by Hurricane Harvey, critics (including Northeastern lawmakers) have complained that Texas senators and members of Congress are seeking emergency federal aid but refused to back relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

The defense, as shown in the quote above by Cruz, is that the Sandy legislation was a bad bill, filled with pork-barrel projects. A similar defense is indicated by a spokesman for Cruz’s colleague, Sen. John Cornyn (R) — that he did vote for Sandy aid, just not the bad bill that was signed into law.

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The Facts

Like many complex pieces of legislation, there were a number of votes and various versions of the emergency aid. The help for Sandy came in two parts — an uncontroversial vote in late 2012 for a $9.7 billion increase in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s borrowing power for flood relief, and then a $50.5 billion package that was approved in January 2013, without the votes of Texas Republicans (or many Republicans).

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