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Fact check: Fact-checking David Vitter and John Bel Edwards on Syrian refugees in Louisiana
November 20, 2015
By Charles Aull
In the final week before Louisiana's gubernatorial election on November 21, the focal point of the race has shifted to Syrian refugees.
U.S. Senator David Vitter (R) released an ad on Sunday stating that his opponent, State Representative John Bel Edwards (D), supported allowing Syrian refugees to reside in Louisiana. Edwards responded two days later with an ad of his own saying that Vitter had missed three congressional hearings on the Syrian refugee crisis.
We looked into the facts of both ads. Vitter's seems to have misrepresented a Facebook post by Edwards and overlooked a statement from him in which he called for a "pause" to Syrian refugees coming into Louisiana. Edwards' ad, on the other hand, turns out to have been largely accurate, though we found the evidence for one of the hearings Vitter is alleged to have missed to be inconclusive. We also point out that missing hearings may not be all that abnormal in Congress.
Background
In September of this year, President Barack Obama (D) announced plans for the U.S. to house "at least" 10,000 Syrian refugees fleeing from their country's civil war and the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State. Members of Congress and governors raised objections to the plan and voiced concerns about the possibility of terrorists—particularly those from the Islamic State—entering the U.S. alongside refugees.
Resistance to the settlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S. intensified following the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, which claimed the lives of more than 100 people and injured some 350 others. One of the terrorists responsible for the attacks is believed to have entered France as a Syrian refugee. As of November 18, 30 U.S. governors have announced that they would not allow refugees from Syria to be settled in their states, and legislation was introduced in the House and Senate blocking Syrian refugees from entering the country.
It was against this backdrop that Vitter released an ad titled "Can't Afford" on November 16. The ad opens with scenes from the attacks in Paris and notes "one of the ISIS [Islamic State] terrorists entered France posing as a Syrian refugee." It mentions Obama's plan to settle 10,000 refugees and claims that John Bel Edwards has "pledged to work with Obama to bring Syrian refugees to Louisiana." A clip of Edwards saying "I supported the President" concludes the ad.
Edwards responded to the ad on November 17 with an ad titled "David Vitter was AWOL." It begins with Edwards stating that after the attacks in Paris, "I immediately called for an end to bringing Syrian refugees to Louisiana." He then states that Vitter is "distorting the facts" and that Vitter, as a U.S. Senator, missed three congressional hearings on the issue of Syrian refugees: "The truth is, David skipped three congressional hearings on this very important issue. He was AWOL when he could have made a difference."
Below, we focus on the claims that Edwards "pledged to work with Obama to bring Syrian refugees to Louisiana" and that Vitter missed three congressional hearings related to Syrian refugees.
Edwards and Syrian refugees in Louisiana
The "Can't Afford" ad cites a Facebook post from Edwards' campaign on November 15, 2015, as evidence that Edwards "pledged to work with Obama to bring Syrian refugees to Louisiana." The post itself is shown briefly on the screen behind images of Edwards and Obama. Still viewable on Edwards' Facebook page, it reads:
| “ | As governor, I will continue to be an active participant in the ongoing conversation with federal authorities so that we can be partners in the effort to both assist refugees who are fleeing from religious persecution and ensure that all our people are safe.[1] | ” |
We found the post to be ambiguous. While it does state that Edwards would be "an active participant in the ongoing conversation with federal authorities" to "assist refugees who are fleeing from religious persecution," it stops far short of saying that Edwards would "work with Obama to bring Syrian refugees to Louisiana."
By looking at other posts on Edwards' Facebook page, we found that he released an official statement on November 14 that more clearly articulates his position on this issue. It reads:
| “ | In light of the recent tragedy in Paris, it’s imperative for us to pause the influx of refugees flowing into our state without more information on the security measures in place. Gov. Jindal has requested additional information from the President on how the federal government is handling the refugees being sent to Louisiana, and I think the President has an obligation to provide answers before we move any further.[1] | ” |
In this statement, Edwards says unambiguously that—at least for the time being—he does not support allowing refugees to settle in Louisiana. Instead, he calls for a "pause" until learning more about "the security measures in place."
We argue, then, that the "Can't Afford" ad misrepresents both Edwards' Facebook post from November 15 and his stance on Syrian refugees.
We also looked into the clip of Edwards' saying "I supported the President." The comment actually came from a gubernatorial debate on October 1, 2015, in which Edwards responded to a question from Vitter about how he reconciles his support for anti-abortion policies with his support for Barack Obama's re-election campaign in 2012. Edwards stated, "The fact of the matter is, I am a Democrat. I supported the President. I have issues with many of the issues taken by the President, this is one of them." The statement was unrelated to Syrian refugees.
Vitter and congressional hearings on Syria
Edwards' ad "David Vitter was AWOL" provides some context for its claim that Vitter "missed three congressional hearings" on Syria in the form of three dates: "3/7/12, 4/17/13, and 10/1/15." We learned more from a press release dated to November 17 and by contacting Edwards' campaign via email.
The congressional hearings that Vitter is said to have missed in March 2012 and April 2013 were hearings held by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Vitter was a member of this committee from 2009 to 2014.
To find out if he actually missed these hearings and if the hearings pertained to Syrian refugees, we turned to the Government Publishing Office (GPO), a federal agency responsible for publishing "official information products of the U.S. Government." Included in these "official information products" are records of committee hearings.
We found that the March 2012 and April 2013 hearings did indeed pertain to Syrian refugees. We also found that Vitter's name was not included in the lists of "committee members present" for both meetings. With that being said, it should be noted that Vitter did attend an Armed Services committee hearing related to Syrian refugees on September 16, 2014, according to GPO records.
The October 2015 meeting was a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee dedicated to "Immigration and The National Interest." Vitter has been a member of both the Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee since January 2015. The October meeting pertained directly to the issue of Syrian refugees. We could not find an official record of the meeting in the GPO's database—it generally takes at least two months for the GPO to publish an official record of a hearing—but the Judiciary Committee features a video of the hearing on its website. We watched the whole video. Vitter does not seem to appear in it.
We reached out to Vitter's campaign via email to confirm whether or not he attended the October 2015 hearing and to ask why he was unable to attend the hearings in March 2012 and April 2013, but have not yet heard back. When we do, we will update this article.
For the time being we say that Edwards' recent ad is accurate in regards to the March 2012 and April 2013 hearings. Official records show that Vitter was not present at either of them. But we refrain from saying definitively that he did not attend the October 2015 hearing without an official record or confirmation from Vitter's campaign. The currently available evidence—a video of the hearing—is inconclusive.
One final point: while looking into these committee hearings, we also wondered how unique it was for Vitter to have missed a few of them. We didn't find a comprehensive study on this issue, but we did come across some evidence to suggest that missing a congressional hearing is not particularly abnormal.
The Washington Examiner, for example, conducted a study in 2014 and concluded that dozens of members of the House missed more than 50 percent of their assigned committee's hearings in that year. Our fellow fact checkers at Politifact—who have raised this same question in similar articles—found that half of the members of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs missed more than 50 percent of their congressional hearings in 2012.
The statistics could be similar for the Senate Armed Services Committee during Vitter's tenure. At the 2012 hearing that he missed, 68 percent of the committee's 25 members were present. At the 2013 hearing, 20 percent were present.
Conclusion
In a recent campaign ad, David Vitter stated that John Bel Edwards "pledged to work with Obama to bring Syrian refugees to Louisiana." Edwards responded with his own ad in which he claimed that Vitter missed three congressional hearings on the issue of Syrian refugees.
We found that Vitter's ad misrepresents a Facebook post by Edwards and that Edwards had previously called for a "pause" to settling Syrian refugees in Louisiana. Conversely, Edwards' ad appears to be mostly accurate, though we argue that the evidence for one of the hearings is inconclusive. For additional context, we also point out that it may not be all that abnormal for members of Congress to miss committee hearings.
Launched in October 2015 and active through October 2018, Fact Check by Ballotpedia examined claims made by elected officials, political appointees, and political candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. We evaluated claims made by politicians of all backgrounds and affiliations, subjecting them to the same objective and neutral examination process. As of 2025, Ballotpedia staff periodically review these articles to revaluate and reaffirm our conclusions. Please email us with questions, comments, or concerns about these articles. To learn more about fact-checking, click here.
Sources
CNN, "House passes bill that could limit Syrian refugees," November 19, 2015
NPR, "30 Governors Call For Halt To U.S. Resettlement Of Syrian Refugees," November 17, 2015
Facebook, "John Bel Edwards for Louisiana," November 15, 2015, @ 5:04 pm
WDSU News, "2015 WDSU Louisiana gubernatorial debate (Part 2)," October 1, 2015
Email exchange with Edwards campaign on November 18, 2015
Government Publishing Office, "About," accessed November 19, 2015
Government Publishing Office, "About Congressional Hearings," accessed November 19, 2015
Politifact, "How many veterans affairs hearings did Bruce Braley miss?" July 30, 2014
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See also
- 2016 presidential candidates on ISIS and Syrian refugees
- U.S. governors and their responses to Syrian refugees
- U.S. mayors and their responses to Syrian refugees
Notes
