Where The Rubber Meets The Road

I know I’ve been picking on The Philadelphia Inquirer a lot lately (and I have a feeling I will be again shortly; their editorial page is in full wingnut mode again today), but I have to give them credit for something. On Sunday, they published a list of the legislation passed in the U.S. House and Senate during the prior week and how local area representatives and senators voted (kind of buried in the Metro section, but at least it was there).

I try to watch for this most Sundays. I should probably make this a regular feature.

This, quite literally, is what it’s all about. Forget the speeches and the slogans and the T.V. and radio campaign attack ads, the glad handling at the supermarkets and strip malls, the rubber-chicken-dinner fundraisers with the assorted Chamber of Commerce types, kissing the babies, pretending to play sports, and all the other gimmicky nonsense that these pretenders try to come up with in an effort to look like actual human beings.

(Ok, I went a bit far with that one – I’ll give you that.)

OK, so without any further setup, this is what our local people did last week:

House

Ethics, lobbying. The House passed, 217-213, a bill (HR 4975) to tighten ethics and lobbying rules. The bill, which now goes to conference with the Senate, requires lobbyists to post Internet reports on campaign donations and gifts to members, and members to get pre-approval of privately financed travel.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), H. James Saxton (R., N.J.), Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.) and Curt Weldon (R., Pa.).

Voting no: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.) and Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.).

This was the gutted and virtually meaningless ethics reform compromise which maintains the odious status quo. The Democratic no votes were in response to the original legislation that they sponsored and was subsequently watered down by the Repug leadership.

Ethics alternative. The House rejected, 216-213, a Democratic bid for stricter ethics and lobbying rules than offered by Republicans in HR 4975 (above). The substitute sought to make it a felony for lawmakers to influence hiring decisions within lobbyist firms, and to require House-Senate conference committees to vote openly on secretly added changes to bills. Democrats also sought to bar members and staff from accepting travel on corporate aircraft as well as gifts and meals from lobbyists.

A yes vote backed the Democrats' measure.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Castle, Fattah, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo and Schwartz.

Voting no: Dent, Pitts, Saxton, Smith and Weldon.

I’d rather have to endure a month of facial fever blisters than see Mike Fitzpatrick re-elected in November, but I grudgingly have to admit that this was a good moment for him. However, to me, this is another one of those calculated moves by the House Repug leadership where Fitzpatrick was allowed to do the right thing knowing the vote would fail anyway.

Gasoline prices. The House passed, 389-34, and sent to the Senate a bill (HR 5253) directing the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and prosecute price-gouging by sellers of gasoline and other fuels.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Saxton, Schwartz, Smith and Weldon.

Voting no: Pitts.

What the hell was Joe Pitts thinking on this one? Even Crazy Curt Weldon voted for this bill!

You can ask him by clicking here and completing the form.

Port security. The House passed, 421-2, and sent to the Senate a bill (HR 4954) to deter terrorist cargo, such as nuclear devices, from entering U.S. ports. The bill requires all U.S. ports to employ radiation-detection gear by 2007; authorizes grants to U.S. ports based on risk rather then politics; requires better screening overseas of high-risk containers bound for America, and directs states to provide Washington with data on port employees in sensitive positions for checking against terrorist watch lists.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Pitts, Saxton, Schwartz, Smith and Weldon.

Not voting: Andrews.

The two “no” votes, by the way, were from Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA), and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). God only knows where their minds were at the time.

Overseas screening. The House defeated, 222-202, a Democratic proposal to require electronic screening overseas of all U.S.-bound containers. The underlying bill (HR 4954, above) requires such screening only of containers thought to pose risk.

A yes vote backed 100 percent overseas screening.

Voting yes: Brady, Fattah, Holden and Schwartz.

Voting no: Castle, Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, Saxton, Smith and Weldon.

Not voting: Andrews.

I don’t know how the proposal was worded or if any proposed enforcement provisions were realistic or not, but to me, this party line vote communicates to me that the House Repug leadership wanted to make sure that the Democrats receive credit for absolutely nothing.

Senate

War, hurricane spending. The Senate passed, 77-21, an emergency $109 billion spending bill that includes $71 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $29 billion for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery and $2.5 billion to counter an expected avian flu pandemic. The bill (HR 4939) now goes to conference with the House.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted for the bill.

Contractor "earmark." Senators rejected, 51-48, a proposal to cut $200 million earmarked for Northrop Grumman Corp. from a $109 billion spending bill (HR 4939, above). The earmark would cover uninsured losses from Hurricane Katrina at the company's Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss.

A yes vote opposed the earmark.

Voting yes: Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.), Thomas Carper (D., Del.) and Rick Santorum (R., Pa.).

Voting no: Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) and Arlen Specter (R., Pa.).

It’s kind of tough to call this one because Northrop Grumman has facilities all over the country, with four in New Jersey including Fort Monmouth (kind of automatic, then, that Lautenberg and Menendez would favor the earmark). The mystery to me, though, is why Specter wouldn’t oppose it (like Santorum did, siding with the Democrats in the process; stuff like this is part of the reason why Little Ricky has managed to climb back into the picture with too many people forgetting all of the other reasons to despise him, such as that hateful remark about “liberal decadence” causing the priest molestation scandal in Boston, that “Justice Sunday” III farce in Philadelphia awhile back, the reimbursement from the Penn Hills School District for his kids even though they spend the majority of their time in Leesburg, Va., the “K” Street project, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera).

I said a few days ago about “The Arlen Shuffle” that our senior Senator does a little move to the left for the cameras, but then does a little move to the right when people are looking the other way. Maybe that’s what he’s doing here.

This week. The House will debate the 2007 military budget, while the Senate will take up medical liability insurance.

By the way, as long as we’re checking out what our local area politicians actually did last week, I should point out that the Inquirer’s headline story yesterday was a profile on Curt Weldon and how all of his friends in defense-related companies are rallying to his side in Weldon’s campaign against Joe Sestak (primarily Boeing in Ridley Park, Pa. of course, and a company called Analytical Graphics in Exton, Pa.…Weldon’s pitch to these people is that, if he is re-elected, he has a chance to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, in which event he’d send a lot of appropriation-related work in their direction).

This, of course, discounts Weldon’s myriad other problems, which I would have expected the Inquirer, being ostensibly an open-minded forum for these matters, to report on in their headline piece.

Of course, that’s not the problem in our current national discourse, is it? The fact that the fourth estate, for the most part, doesn’t seem to know how to do its job any more is not an issue whatsoever. IT’S THOSE NASTY, SWEARING LIBERAL BLOGGERS THAT KEEP SENDING UNKIND EMAILS TO RICHARD COHEN!!! THEY’RE THE PROBLEM!!

(And don't we know it - smirk.)