According to Fox News, Bush, who lost her Democratic primary in 2024 and is now seeking to reclaim her former seat, recently took to social media to complain that Congress fails to prioritize funding for public transportation.
Yet critics note that she was among a small group of progressive Democrats who opposed the 2021 bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a measure that included up to $108 billion for transit upgrades but did not satisfy the Squad’s broader ideological demands. That vote, they argue, undercuts her current claims that she is a champion of buses and rail for her St. Louis-area constituents.
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Bush was one of just six House Democrats, all members of the Squad, to vote against the infrastructure package, which passed with bipartisan support and was widely hailed as a major investment in America’s roads, bridges, and transit systems. She and her colleagues objected not to the transit funding itself, but to the bill’s failure to also deliver a sweeping expansion of progressive priorities, including universal pre-K, Medicare and Medicaid expansions, affordable housing, “green” infrastructure, a Civilian Climate Corps, and new restrictions on oil drilling and leasing.
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At the time, Bush framed her opposition as a matter of principle and loyalty to her base, insisting that she would not accept what she viewed as a half-measure. She declared that she "didn't come to Congress to allow [her constituents'] priorities to be put on a shelf," signaling that she was willing to vote down a major infrastructure bill if it did not also advance the left’s social and environmental agenda.
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Now, as she campaigns to return to Washington, Bush is presenting herself as a defender of public transit and basic services for working-class residents in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District. In a recent social media post, she lamented that "Reliable transit service is essential in meeting the most basic needs of St. Louis," and complained, "Unfortunately, transit funding is not prioritized in Congress. That changes when I return to Washington, as I'll continue fighting for legislation that benefits us."
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Republican strategists and conservative commentators have seized on the apparent contradiction between Bush’s rhetoric and her voting record. Longtime GOP campaign operative Colin Reed argued that "Campaign rhetoric has a nasty habit of colliding with contradictory votes from the past, and undermining politicians’ credibility and trust," suggesting that voters are unlikely to forget that Bush helped oppose a bill that poured billions into the very transit systems she now claims are neglected.
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In the same social media post, Bush shared a photo of herself at what appears to be a bus stop, boasting that she "introduced legislation to fund bus and light rail projects at a greater scale." During her time in Congress, she did in fact introduce two transit-related measures—the Bus Rapid Transit Act and the Light Rail Transit Act—designed to create new federal grant programs through the Federal Transit Administration to modernize transit infrastructure nationwide.
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However, those legislative proposals never became law, and critics argue that her decision to vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill did far more to shape real-world outcomes than her messaging bills. When Fox News Digital asked her campaign to explain why she now complains about Congress neglecting transit after opposing a bill that funded it, her team insisted there was no inconsistency in her stance.
A Bush campaign spokesperson maintained that the former congresswoman was "clear and consistent" that her "no" vote stemmed from Democratic leadership’s decision to decouple the infrastructure bill from President Biden’s Build Back Better package. "Universal pre-K, expanded Medicare, the Child Tax Credit, and lower prescription drug prices were all policies that Missouri’s 1st District sent the Congresswoman to DC to win," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital, adding, "She’s been clear and consistent on this: her vote was because the infrastructure bill was uncoupled from Build Back Better, which contained those policies. With so much on the line for St. Louis and the nation, the Congresswoman wanted to fight for more, not settle for less."
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Bush’s political identity has long been rooted in activism rather than incremental compromise. She rose to prominence as a Black Lives Matter organizer during the 2014 Ferguson protests following the police shooting of Michael Brown, and in 2020 she toppled longtime Democratic incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr., becoming the first Black woman to represent Missouri in Congress.
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Once in Washington, Bush quickly aligned herself with high-profile Squad members such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Together, they have championed radical proposals to defund or severely restrict police departments, expand government control over health care, and impose sweeping environmental regulations under the banner of “environmental justice,” positions that have often put them at odds with more moderate Democrats and with the broader electorate.
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As Bush seeks to regain her seat, Republicans argue that her record and rhetoric remain out of step with the practical concerns of voters in St. Louis, who already rejected her once. "If this is the best Cori Bush has to offer the same Missouri voters who already bounced her out of office, the sequel is shaping up to have a similar ending to the last campaign," Reed said, suggesting that her emphasis on ideological purity over tangible results may again prove politically costly.
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Other GOP voices have highlighted what they describe as a pattern of hypocrisy in Bush’s public persona and policy positions. "No wonder Cori Bush restricts comments on her X account posts, because her hypocrisy knows no bounds and deserves to be called out by the American people," Mark Bednar, former communications chief for then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, told Fox News Digital.
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Bednar pointed to several examples that have dogged Bush throughout her tenure, including her support for the Green New Deal while reportedly driving an SUV, and her calls to defund the police while spending heavily on private security. "Whether it's driving an SUV but demanding everyone else must live under the Green New Deal, spending thousands on private security while calling to defund the police, or now trying to hide from her own voting record, Cori Bush's hypocrisy is nothing short of jaw-dropping," he said, adding, "The voters of St. Louis have already rejected her once, and it shouldn't be a surprise if it happens again this election cycle."
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For conservatives, Bush’s latest pivot on public transit underscores a broader critique of the progressive left: that its leaders routinely prioritize ideological wish lists over concrete improvements that could immediately benefit their constituents.
As Bush asks voters to send her back to Congress on a promise to fight for buses and trains, she must now contend with the reality that when given the chance to support a historic investment in those very systems, she chose instead to hold out for a massive expansion of government that even her own party could not deliver.
