Asserting independence?

As of this writing, our newly-elected Congressman Frank Kratovil has voted 53 times in his elected capacity as our representative. During his campaign, he assured the voting public that he would be an independent voice in Washington.

Well, thus far Frank has voted with the majority of Democrats 86.8% of the time, or 46 votes out of 53. Certainly I know that my friends to my left will argue that not all votes are created equal, and they are right. Let’s see where Frank has shown his independence and where he’s toed the party line to the district’s detriment.

The seven votes where Frank broke with the majority of Democrats are as follows:

  • Roll Call #17, Providing for consideration of H.R. 384, to reform the Troubled Assets Relief Program of the Secretary of the Treasury and ensure accounability (sic) under such program
  • Roll Call #25, On Motion to Recommit with Instructions, TARP Reform and Accountability Act
  • Roll Call #27, Relating to the disapproval of obligations under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
  • Roll Call #35, Rule providing for consideration of the bill H.R. 1
  • Roll Call #38, On Question of Consideration of Bill, Making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year ending 2009 (H.R. 1)
  • Roll Call #45, On Motion to Recommit with Instructions, Making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year ending 2009 (H.R. 1)
  • Roll Call #46, On Passage, Making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year ending 2009 (H.R. 1)

So Frank can be considered somewhat of a maverick on the stimulus bill and TARP reform. But there were other opportunities Frank could have stood with other thoughtful Democrats on both of these bills.

  • He could have voted for the Camp Amendment, which stripped the appropriations from the stimulus package, leaving just tax relief (Roll Call #44).
  • Even though he voted to recommit in vote #25, Frank voted to pass the TARP reform bill on the very next vote (Roll Call #26). Was he for it before he was against it, or vice versa?

And there were other places where Kratovil could have voted in the better interests of the district.

For example, why should we subsidize Amtrak? Frank voted against stripping an appropriation for the railroad from the stimulus bill (Roll Call #43). He also voted against stripping appropriations from the stimulus bill on another roll call vote (#42).

He gave a gift to one of his largest contributor groups by voting for the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 – not just once (Roll Call #9), but twice (Roll Call #37). This eliminated the statute of limitations on pay discrimination lawsuits, which means look out for a slew of new lawsuits over alleged unfairness which happened years or even decades ago, after businesses have destroyed their records.

Finally, while this wasn’t a surprise given his early campaign rhetoric, Frank voted to reauthorize and expand the SCHIP program (Roll Call #16), ensuring the continued existence of that budget-busting entitlement.

Later this week I’ll look at our state’s two senators, who tend to vote like peas in a pod, and see just what they are voting for the government to do.

My first letter to Frank

I’m going to be curious to see when and how I get a response to this. Here was an opportunity to reach out and touch my newly and duly elected (despite my strenuous objections and serious reservations) Congressman. He has no Salisbury office yet, but e-mail is actually better anyhow.

The bill in question is S.22, which I wrote about last Friday.

On Sunday, the Senate allowed S.22, The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, to proceed by voting for cloture. Thus, it’s expected to get a vote in your chamber later this week, although my bet is that even more will be added to the 1,200-plus pages the bill already contains.

There are three main concerns I have with this legislation. First of all, as an omnibus bill there’s more than just land management added. One instance is the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, which was a bill that didn’t get passed last session. The Senate sponsor decided to add this into the bill in hopes of sneaking it through without as much debate. Many of your fellow House members are notorious for doing the same thing to “must-pass” bills.

Secondly, one provision of S.22 pulls an estimated 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil off the market by restricting the use of the land overhead in Wyoming. At a time when we have energy companies willing to invest their own capital into our economy in order to secure new supplies, taking them “off the market”, so to speak, seems like a poor move given both our economic situation and dependence on foreign energy supplies. While I know you favor alternatives in energy, the technology isn’t ready for a switchover and may not be for some time.

My third concern comes out of respect for private property rights. By placing areas under federal control (such as “wild and scenic” rivers, for example) many of those new restrictions negatively impact landowners whose plans for their private property would be altered because they would run afoul of federal dictates. Moreover, any privately-held land directly acquired by governmental entities comes off the local property tax rolls, dealing a blow to the financial well-being of local governments.

I hope you’ll take these arguments into consideration and vote against the passage of S.22 through the House.

While it may do just as much good as my brief conversations on Friday with the staffers of Senators Cardin and Mikulski (both of whom voted for cloture), I decided to make my feelings known. It’s a good chance for Frank to establish those “independent” bonafides he campaigned on, because as I write this he hasn’t gone against his party brethren yet in any vote.

Off on the wrong foot

One day in Congress and Frank Kratovil is already showing his stripes.

Yesterday the House approved new rules on a practically party-line basis. Chief among the rules dropped from the Contract With America-era rules (which made things more fair for both the majority and minority party) were the six-year term limit on committee chairs and neutering the “motion to recommit”:

A motion to recommit a bill or joint resolution may include instructions only in the form of a direction to report an amendment or amendments back to the House forthwith. 

The other bothersome practice which drew controversy last year was holding votes open until the side the Speaker deems correct prevails. Guess what, it’s now the rule of the House that Speaker Pelosi or whoever is running the show at that particular juncture can twist some arms and get their way:

Conduct of Votes- In clause 2(a) of rule XX, strike `A record vote by electronic device shall not be held open for the sole purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote.’. (Emphasis mine.)

There were also a number of changes to promote gender neutrality, which only serves the point of political correctness.

While there were six Democrats who bravely stood up for the old rules (while seven chose not to vote), Frank wasn’t one of them. And it only took two votes for Kratovil to assert his “independence” and keep Nancy Pelosi as Speaker (the first vote was to determine a quorum.)

Four votes so far, two poor ones. Is this what the Eastern Shore really wanted?

The hat tip for today goes to the ALG blog, but the research was something I already knew how to do. Count on it being done a lot.