Ann Wagner wants St. Louis to know she brought home $42 million for I-70. What she left out of her Facebook post is how she voted on the law the money came from.
The victory lap
St. Louis Magazine reported that last week Wagner posted a photo on Facebook from a visit with the Missouri Department of Transportation's St. Louis district engineer. She said she had come in person to deliver the good news: $42 million to upgrade I-70 near St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
"I am always proud to work with local stakeholders to ensure your tax dollars are improving the St. Louis region," she wrote.
It is a good project. The Transportation Department's award sheet says the money will rebuild the Cypress Road interchange on I-70 — the primary I-70 entrance to Lambert airport — with roundabouts and new ramps to cut crash risk and ease freight bottlenecks.
The trouble is where the money came from.
Where the money came from
The $42 million comes from a federal grant program for big freight and highway projects. St. Louis Magazine found that U.S. Department of Transportation documents tie the money to that program's 2026 funding — and the 2026 funding came from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law Congress passed in 2021. That law paid for highway projects from 2022 through 2026.
On November 5, 2021, the House passed that law 228 to 206. The official roll call shows how Ann Wagner voted: Nay.
She was not alone. 200 House Republicans voted no; only 13 voted yes. But one of Missouri's own Republican senators at the time, Roy Blunt, voted for it — one of 19 GOP senators who did.
To cover the gap, Wagner's post pointed to a letter she sent in June supporting the grant. Writing a letter asking for money from a law you voted to block is not the same as delivering it.
The spin
Her spokesman, Arthur Bryant, first told St. Louis Magazine the money came from a different bill, passed in February 2026, that Wagner voted for. The Transportation Department's own documents say otherwise.
Then he changed the argument. Wagner, he said, voted in 2015 for the law that first created the grant program. The 2021 law was more than 1,000 pages, he said, and only about 10 of them dealt with this program — so calling her a "no" on it was "completely disingenuous."
But a vote on a bill is a vote on the whole bill. If those 10 pages were worth $42 million to St. Louis, the vote that renewed them for 2022 through 2026 came in 2021, and she voted no.
Her Democratic opponent, Fred Wellman, put it this way to the magazine: "Ann Wagner has spent 13 years in Congress, and she's still taking credit for investments funded by a law she voted against."
She's not the only one
This is a pattern among Republicans who voted against the 2021 law and then showed up for the ribbon-cutting:
- Bryan Steil took credit for $94.3 million for Wisconsin lead pipes from the same law he voted against.
- James Comer said its money went to things that "do not affect" his district — then took credit for $24 million of it.
- David Rouzer voted against the bridge money, then called it a game-changer.
Why it matters now
St. Louis Magazine notes that Wagner, after nearly 13 years in Congress, is in an unexpectedly close race, and that she rarely holds district events open to the general public. When more than 1,000 people turned out for a town-hall-style event in her district in 2025, she called it "just another political stunt from the Democrats".
What the record shows
Ann Wagner posted that she had come in person to deliver $42 million for I-70 near Lambert airport. Federal transportation documents tie that money to the 2021 infrastructure law, and the House roll call shows she voted against that law. Her office first claimed the money came from a different bill, and when that didn't hold up, argued that her "no" vote shouldn't count against the part of the law she liked.
Source
Wagner touts funding for MoDOT that she voted against — St. Louis Magazine
