PolitiFact: The Roundup

Tuesday’s runoff winner will face Democrat Michelle Nunn in the November general election for a chance at a six-year Senate term.

(Follow us @PolitFactGA for updates and links)

Abbreviated versions of some of our fact checks in this race are below.

To comment on our rulings or suggest one of your own, please go to our Facebook page (

). You can also follow us on Twitter (

)

—

Friends of Jack Kingston: David Perdue “has never voted in a Republican primary until his name was on the ballot.”

A new Kingston flier suggests that Perdue’s not a true Republican — claiming specifically that he’s never voted in a Republican primary until May, when his name was on the ballot for Chambliss’ job.

We looked at voter records on Perdue from Massachusetts, Texas, Tennessee and Georgia, places the former CEO of Dollar General has lived since 1994. The records show he’s voted in at least nine elections in 20 years, including in two Republican presidential preference primaries in 2008 and 2012.

We rated the statement in the Kingston flier as False.

—

Kingston: “Perdue mismanaged Pillowtex, and nearly 8,000 people got laid off.”

In a TV ad called “What I Do,” Kingston attacks Perdue’s time as CEO of Pillowtex, a troubled North Carolina textile firm that went under shortly after he left in 2003.

In November 2000, Pillowtex filed for bankruptcy after defaulting on a $650 million bank loan.

The firm emerged from bankruptcy in May 2002. Perdue arrived in July on the heels of sneaker success, having revived Reebok’s finances as CEO.

Perdue told Pillowtex’s top leaders that his plan was to improve sales through aggressive marketing and moving more work overseas, according to a Charlotte Observer investigation. A similar game plan catapulted his career at Sara Lee, which closed dozens of plants (including four in Georgia) while adding work in Asia.

But the company lost $27 million in the seven months after coming out of bankruptcy. Shortly after arriving, Perdue and top managers also found between $40 million and $50 million in pension liabilities missed in bankruptcy proceedings.

In March 2003, Perdue left Pillowtex to become chief at Dollar General. Pillowtex shut down four months later. About 7,650 people lost their jobs nationwide, including 300 people who had been laid off in the first bankruptcy.

Pillowtex’s troubles began before Perdue, and the layoffs were decided after he left. We rate Kingston’s statement as Mostly False.

—

Perdue: Kingston voted for the “Cash for Clunkers” program.

Perdue has attacked Kingston on YouTube and in television ads for backing President Barack Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” program. The Car Allowance Rebate System, its formal name, was a federal voucher program that encouraged consumers to replace vehicles with more-fuel-efficient models.

Kingston did not vote to fund Cash for Clunkers initially, according to the legislative tracking service GovTrack. He cast “No” votes on bills on June 9 and June 16 that carried the framework of the program in 2009.

But he voted in favor of putting an extra $2 billion into the program a month later when it was clearly foundering.

We asked Greg Dolan, a spokesman for Kingston, for an explanation.

“Once the program was authorized, Rep. Kingston approved moving funds from the grant program that spawned Solyndra to the slightly-less-wasteful Cash-for-Clunkers,” Dolan wrote in an email.

We rated Perdue’s statement that Kingston voted for “Obama’s Cash for Clunkers” as Half True.

—

Perdue: “Kingston spent our tax dollars on thousands of wasteful earmarks.”

Multiple times, Perdue leveled accusations against Kingston about earmarks, the money lawmakers pull from the federal budget for pet projects in their jurisdictions.

“He has voted for thousands of earmarks, not just his own, wasting tax dollars,” said Derrick Dickey, Perdue’s chief of staff. “Take the 2005 transportation bill, which has 6,300 earmarks alone.”

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act authorized spending $286 billion to be doled out over five years. While the majority of the money was funneled to road construction and public transit projects, the bill also contained a record 6,371 earmarks from members of both parties.

Kingston was among those who voted in favor of that bill, despite a long-standing push to overhaul the earmark process.

Criticism over those projects, and the punch line “Bridge to Nowhere,” helped prompt Congress to ban earmarks in 2010.

Shortly thereafter, Kingston began saying that lawmakers may have overreacted. In 2010, Kingston told the political website Politico that the definition of earmarks, if not the ban, needed review.

“Let’s look at transportation,” he said. “How do you handle that without earmarks, since that’s a heavily earmarked bill?”

Kingston spokesman Chris Crawford called the accusation that Kingston supported thousands of earmarks false on its face – given the hundreds specifically tied to Kingston’s name. He also said it was a “blatant fabrication” trying to link Kingston to other lawmakers’ projects.

There’s a bit of truth in Perdue’s claim, but just a bit.

We rated his statement Mostly False.

—

Perdue: Kingston voted to raise his pay seven times.

Perdue and his backers have attacked Kingston for having voted seven times to raise his own pay.

The problem with the claim is congressional raises have been automatic since the l980s unless there’s a specific vote to refuse or reduce them.

Perdue’s attacks are based on procedural votes that Kingston took that effectively blocked others’ attempts to force an up-or-down vote on accepting the annual raises.

And Kingston did support some efforts to delay or deny the raises.

In 11 years, Congress voted to delay or deny the pay raises with 13 votes. The Congressional Record shows Kingston voted with the majority on eight of those 13 votes.

We rated Perdue’s statement as Mostly False.

—

Perdue: Kingston “requested more earmarks than any other GA Congressman and all GA GOP members combined.”

We reviewed two databases that backed up this claim Perdue made in a Twitter post. One showed Kingston made 145 requests for earmarks in three years, pulling in about $211 million. Together, Georgia’s GOP delegation had about $327 million in earmarks in that same period.

Kingston, who represents five of Georgia’s eight military installations, noted that much of the funding was for defense or military spending, such as an IED simulator at Fort Stewart and hospital renovations at installations statewide.

We rated Perdue’s statement Mostly True.

—

Kingston: Perdue’s company took $3 million from the federal stimulus program created by President Barack Obama.

In a provocative ad, Kingston tries to tie his Republican runoff opponent, Perdue, to the president. An Obama impersonator tells Kingston in a voice mail that Perdue is “my kind of guy,” someone who, among other things, has a company that took $3 million in federal stimulus money.

The ad refers to $3.4 million in stimulus money that went to Alliant Energy Co., a Midwest energy holding company with $3.2 billion in reported operating revenue for 2013. Perdue serves on the company’s board of directors but has no direct management responsibility and no day-to-day role at the company. We saw the claim by Kingston as misleading.

We rated the ad Mostly False.

—

Perdue: Dollar General “added 2,500 stores and 20,000 jobs” during his four years as CEO.

In his first campaign television ad, Perdue highlighted his record as CEO of Dollar General from June 2003 to July 2007. The company’s annual reports during that time show ambitious plans to open 600 to 800 stores a year. In most years during Perdue’s tenure, Dollar General exceeded those projections.

Records show that on March 4, 2007, the company had 8,260 stores and about 69,500 full-time and part-time employees. That’s a four-year increase of nearly 2,100 stores and 16,000 workers.

Campaign spokesman Derrick Dickey said those reports are not a reliable measuring stick to examine the accuracy of Perdue’s statement for a few reasons, including the time covered by those reports didn’t match exactly Perdue’s time as CEO. “The numbers we cited are based on our analysis of the added stores and jobs created that can be directly attributed to decisions made by David while he served as CEO, ” Dickey said via email.

Perdue’s overall point about opening many new stores and creating a lot of jobs is on target.

We rated his claim Mostly True.

—

“The David Perdue Files” website: Perdue supports Common Core.

During the campaign, Perdue found himself the subject of a website attack.

The site, “The David Perdue Files,” accused the political newcomer of being a RINO —- Republican in Name Only —- with “liberal positions and establishment ties.”

“David Perdue supports Common Core, ” it said.

Perdue has said in several interviews that he believes in the initial intent of Common Core as a means for states setting their own educational goals by what was proposed by the National Governors Association. Perdue, though, also has made it very clear he has soured on the plan.

We rated the website attack on Perdue as Mostly False.