New Jersey Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski says a recent political ad from the House Republicans’ campaign arm claiming that in a pre-Congress job he lobbied on behalf of sex offenders will fail.
The National Republican Congressional Committee ad, which uses b-roll footage of cities and suburbs, has a voice-over saying, “In every city, in every neighborhood, around every corner, sex offenders are living among us. But Tom Malinowski tried to make it easier for predators to hide in the shadows. Malinowski worked as the top lobbyist for a radical group that strongly opposed the national sex offender registry. Law enforcement praised the national sex offender registry that Tom Malinowski led an effort to stop. After two decades in Washington, Tom Malinowski has become dangerously radical.”
The NRCC ad dropped Tuesday morning, which the Republican group spent $250,000 to broadcast in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, claims Malinowski, while the head of the Washington, D.C., office of Human Rights Watch, opposed a measure in the 2006 crime bill that would have established a national sex offender registry.
Malinowski denied he was involved in this provision related to this legislation at the time.
Malinowski, a first-term member of Congress, told the Washington Examiner, “I think I am helping to lead a bipartisan effort here against extremism, and they’re pandering to them, and it’s gonna backfire in a very serious way.”
He added, “It’s playing with fire. They’re playing with imagery that causes disturbed people to do violent things.”
NRCC Spokesman Mike McAdams responded, “Tom Malinowski lobbied on behalf of sexual predators and put New Jersey families at risk.”
Malinowski is in a tough reelection battle with New Jersey Republican Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, Jr. and the New Jersey GOP began taking swipes at him over the issue last week.
“Tom Malinowski’s roots are rotten, and his values are hollow,” New Jersey GOP Chairman Doug Steinhardt said. “That he was bought and paid for to lobby against protecting children from sex offenders is emblematic of his self-serving nature.”
