Win It Back PAC Critiques Rep. Andy Barr’s Support for DEI Legislation
The Win It Back PAC, which is linked to the conservative Club for Growth, released an advertisement on Monday that takes aim at Kentucky Senate Republican candidate Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) over his support for a bill promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies within American companies.
“The American economy has no place for DEI,” the narrator of the ad asserts. “Yet, Andy Barr voted to impose DEI on American businesses, undermining our competitiveness and pushing a woke agenda. Now, he’s trying to cover it up.”
The ad continues, “Mr. Barr put his middle-class lifestyle at risk, declared bankruptcy, and then, apparently, had an awakening. Simply put, Andy Barr doesn’t belong in the Senate.”
The PAC referenced Barr’s previous vote in 2019, where he supported HR5084, a bill focused on enhancing corporate governance through diversity initiatives, introduced by Representative Gregory Meeks (D-New York).
According to the CPAC Legislative Accountability Center, lawmakers were encouraged to reject the bill, which they claimed would significantly increase government influence, creating a limiting environment for companies aiming to diversify their boards.
CPAC further noted:
The bill mandates that publicly traded companies disclose the racial, ethnic, and gender breakdown of their boards and executives. The ACU argues that it seeks to impose government control over hiring practices, essentially shaming and pressuring private firms to set quotas unrelated to competence. The ACU stands against discrimination and believes in equal rights for all. They view the bill as an attempt to incite harassment and impose discriminatory practices based on race and gender. The House approved the bill by a vote of 281-135 on November 18, 2019, but it did not pass in the Senate.
In a recent campaign aimed at replacing retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Club for Growth has invested $2 million to target Barr.
Reports from Breitbart News indicate that in September, Barr supported the deployment of DEI initiatives across government, corporations, and even the military.
However, the repeated assertions from Barr and his campaign highlight a notable hypocrisy. His congressional voting history reveals a clear contradiction on these matters.
Specifically, Barr backed numerous National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) bills that integrated DEI policies into the military, including appointing a chief diversity officer at the Pentagon and renaming military bases, effectively erasing key historical moments. One of these initiatives was deemed so problematic that President Trump ultimately exercised his veto against it due to its alignment with “woke madness.” Barr supported it, even though many conservatives, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), criticized it for prioritizing “Democratic agendas.”
Sen. Cruz remarked at the time, “This bill has many partisan priorities unrelated to national security, like renaming military bases in a blatant political move to erase history.”
President Trump vetoed the bill, asserting, “My administration respects the legacy of the countless American servicemen and women who have served honorably on these military bases.” He firmly opposed efforts to politically motivate changes that could distort historical achievements and undermine the principles on which America was founded.
