Where The Rubber Meets The Road (1/26/07)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.

House

Student loans. The House passed, 356-71, and sent to the Senate a bill that would halve interest rates over five years in the Stafford student-loan program for undergraduates. The bill (HR 5) would lower rates for the need-based loans, from 6.8 percent today to 3.4 percent in 2011.

All Philadelphia-area representatives voted for the bill.

Even Pancake Joe Pitts? My God…

Alternative loan plan. The House rejected, 241-186, a GOP bid to add means testing to HR 5 (above). The motion sought to deny lower interest rates to former students in any year they earned over $65,000, thus freeing up funds for Pell Grants to help the poor pay tuition.

A yes vote backed the GOP motion.

Voting yes: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.) and H. James Saxton (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

How about “means testing” to find out whether or not Paris Hilton needs any more tax cuts? Why should less-poor students be made to choose against more-poor students?

Unbelievable.

Oil company taxes. The House passed, 264-163, and sent to the Senate a bill that would repeal tax breaks designed to spur extraction of fossil fuels and use the savings of $14 billion over 10 years to open a Strategic Renewable Energy Reserve for funding renewable fuels and energy efficiencies.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

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

Voting no: Pitts.

Pitts is an utter shill (but we knew that, didn’t we?).

Congressional pages. Members voted 416-0 to enlarge the House Page Board to include one member representing parents, one member speaking for former pages and equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans (two each). Now before the Senate, the bill (HR 475) is a direct response to the 2006 scandal in which then-Rep. Mark Foley (R., Fla.) was discovered to have made inappropriate contacts over several years with current and former pages.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Pitts, Saxton, Schwartz, Sestak and Smith.

Not voting: Fattah.

Senate

Ethics, lobbying. The Senate passed, 96-2, a bill to tighten congressional ethics rules and increase regulation of lobbyists. The bill (S 1), in part, bans lobbyists from providing gifts and meals to senators and requires disclosure of spending and tax earmarks before voting occurs. It also outlaws the practice of lobbyists and their employers throwing lavish parties for members of Congress at the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions. The bill now goes to conference with the House.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted for the bill.

Once more (as I noted last week), Arlen Specter voted against an amendment to this bill preventing family members from participating in political action committees or campaign committees, but he voted for the overall bill.

Office of Public Integrity. Senators rejected, 71-27, an amendment to the ethics bill (S 1, above) that sought to set up an Office of Public Integrity, armed with subpoena power, to probe complaints of misconduct by senators and staff.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.), Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey Jr. (D., Pa.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.) and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.).

Voting no: Arlen Specter (R., Pa.).

As you can tell from the totals, the split against this was bipartisan, which is a shame. You had Dems like John Kerry, Bob Casey and even Completely-And-Utterly-Wrong-On-Iraq-And-Let-Someone-Else-Die-For-It Joe Lieberman along with Lying St. McCain supporting it, yet Arlen (a former prosecutor, after all) voted thumbs down along with Hillary Clinton and even Ted Kennedy (probably The Ghost Of Ken Starr came into play here somewhat).

So confusing…

This week, the House was scheduled to vote on denying congressional pensions to members convicted of crimes. The Senate debated a minimum-wage increase (and to kill the suspense…well, sort of…we know the Senate shot it down this week, which may be indicative of a pattern but I hope not; I’m afraid the House will do all kinds of great things, but the Repugs will strangle a lot of it in the Senate since they have enough of a minority to do it).