, Comstock had voted with President Trump's position 97.8% of the time and was the second-most partisan Trump supporter versus her district's own voting patterns in the U.S. House. In the
115th United States Congress, she had voted with the Republican Party 94.7% of the time. Comstock was ranked as the 82nd most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the
114th United States Congress in the Bipartisan Index created by
The Lugar Center. She was a member of the
Republican Main Street Partnership.
Vote Smart Political Courage Test Vote Smart, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States, "researched presidential and congressional candidates' public records to determine candidates' likely responses on certain key issues." According to Vote Smart's 2016 analysis, Comstock generally supported pro-life legislation, opposes an income tax increase, supported federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth, supported lowering taxes as a means of promoting economic growth, supported the building of the
Keystone Pipeline, supported government funding for the development of renewable energy, opposes the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, opposed gun-control legislation, supported repealing the
Affordable Care Act, supported requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to be deported, opposed same-sex marriage, and supported increased American intervention in
Iraq and
Syria beyond air support.
Abortion At Middlebury College (Class of 1981) Comstock was known as being vigorously opposed to abortion and was often one of the few students in her political science classes to stake out that position. As a member of the Virginia General Assembly, Comstock supported a ban on abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother's life is in danger. In 2011, Comstock voted in favor of Virginia HB 462, which required women to have transvaginal ultrasounds before receiving an abortion. When opponents pointed out that this would necessitate an internal ultrasound for early-term pregnancies, an amendment was passed to limit the requirement to external ultrasounds only. She supported making birth control available to women over the counter.
Health care She was one of twenty Republicans in the House to vote against the
American Health Care Act of 2017 (H.R. 1628), the House Republican bill to repeal and replace the ACA.
Internet Comstock opposed
net neutrality. In 2015, in the wake of a
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling protecting net neutrality, Comstock said that net neutrality is "government overreach" and "robs the internet of its freedom".
Immigration In a 2014 election debate, Comstock criticized President
Barack Obama's executive orders on immigration (see
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,
Deferred Action for Parents of Americans), calling for immigration-law policy changes to be made via legislation. Comstock also suggested tracking people entering the U.S. like "
FedEx can track packages coming in here all of the time". Comstock criticized President
Donald Trump's 2017
executive order to impose a temporary ban on entry to the U.S. to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, saying: "The president's Executive Order [goes] beyond the increased vetting actions that Congress has supported on a bipartisan basis and inexplicably applied to Green Card holders. This should be addressed and corrected expeditiously." Comstock supported Trump's proposed border wall on the Southern border. In February 2018, Comstock "generated national headlines when she rebuked the president during a meeting ...at the White House on the dangers of the deadly gang
MS-13." Trump said that "if congressional Democrats would not support a legislative crackdown on dangerous illegal immigrants, he would advocate shutting down the federal government." Comstock replied, "We don't need a government shutdown. ... I think both sides have learned that a government shutdown was bad, it wasn't good for them." While Comstock described the exchange as "a polite conversation",
The Washington Post said that "[e]veryone else called it an extraordinary public scolding of a sitting U.S. president." In 2018, the
U.S. Senate passed a bill introduced by Comstock which gave the federal government greater latitude in deporting immigrants who were suspected of gang activity.
LGBT rights Comstock opposed same-sex marriage. In 2012, she voted for legislation that allowed private adoption and foster care agencies to deny adoptions to gay individuals. She supported the nomination of Tracy Thorne-Begland to the Richmond Circuit Court in 2013, Virginia's first openly gay judge. She supported adult stem cell research.
Transportation In April 2016, Comstock said she would support legislation introduced by Democrat
John Delaney to overhaul the board that oversees the
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which runs
Washington's Metrorail system. The legislation would have required the next three federal appointments to the authority's board of directors to be either a certified transit, management, or financial expert.
Women In 2017, Comstock joined first lady
Melania Trump and first daughter
Ivanka Trump in the Oval Office as the president signed Comstock's bill, the
INSPIRE Women Act, which encouraged women and girls to study math and science as well as pursue aerospace careers." In November 2017, Comstock told a House hearing on sexual harassment on Capitol Hill "that she was told about a staffer who quit her job after a lawmaker asked her to bring work material to his house, then exposed himself." A December 2017 article in the
Weekly Standard stated that Comstock had "taken a leading role in pushing for congressional reforms aimed at combatting sexual harassment." She had "co-sponsored a resolution that, among other small changes, requires all lawmakers and their staff to complete anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training at the start of each session", but she saw that proposal "as a quick fix, and was looking to make broader, more authoritative changes to the law." In February 2018, Comstock told a House subcommittee that women were being pushed out of jobs in science and technology. In May 2018, Comstock joined with Congresswoman
Lois Frankel (D-FL) in calling on airlines to address sexual harassment on flights. "Approximately 80 percent of flight attendants are female and they are often objectified on a daily basis by passengers, coworkers, and superiors", the congresswomen wrote. "It is perhaps not surprising that sexual harassment is prevalent given the industry's past objectification of flight attendants."
Gun policy , Comstock had an "A" rating from the
NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF). In the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, she received $14,850 in campaign contributions from the NRA. In 2017, she was one of 213 co-sponsors of legislation seeking to "amend the federal criminal code to allow a qualified individual to carry a concealed handgun into or possess a concealed handgun in another state that allows individuals to carry concealed firearms." She voted for H.J.Res 40, signed into law in February 2017, which nullifies a rule that "implements a plan to provide to the National Instant Criminal History Background Check System the name of an individual who meets certain criteria, including that benefit payments are made through a representative payee because the individual is determined to be mentally incapable of managing them. (Current law prohibits firearm sale or transfer to and purchase or possession by a person who has been adjudicated as a mental defective.)" In April 2018, NBC News reported that "in the wake of the
Parkland shooting and the national movement that has followed, gun control supporters hope they can change that dynamic in the 2018 midterm elections, starting with Comstock's district in northern Virginia." Several of her Democratic opponents were "making gun control centerpieces of their campaigns." Mark Rozell of
George Mason University said that "demographic changes and current events" added up to "almost a perfect storm against her."
Fairness doctrine In October 2008, Comstock and Democratic operative
Lanny Davis co-wrote an article in the
National Review in which they expressed strong opposition to the call for reinstatement of the
FCC fairness doctrine. "Historically," they wrote, "opposition to the Fairness Doctrine has been genuinely a bipartisan issue." They noted that opponents of the fairness doctrine included left-wingers like
Dan Rather and
Alan Colmes and right-wingers like
Rush Limbaugh and
Sean Hannity; they recalled that in 1978 "NBC aired a show on the
Holocaust and was sued by a group demanding air time to argue that the Holocaust was a myth. The network had to defend itself for over three years." They concluded that "we need more speech, not less, and not government regulated speech." ==Post-political career==