Where The Rubber Meets The Road (6/1/07)

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

War funding. The House approved, 280-142, and sent to the Senate $96 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan war appropriations through Sept. 30. The bill specifies political, security and economic benchmarks on which the Iraqi government must show progress.
A yes vote was to pass HR 2206.

Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), H. James Saxton (R., N.J.), Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.) and Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.).

As we know, the No votes were necessitated by the removal of the withdrawal deadline of March 2008 (good for Patrick, as well as Brady and Fattah).

I’ll give Admiral Joe the benefit of the doubt on trying to do right by our military, though I know he wants to end this war. However, I don’t believe I can say the same thing about Rob Andrews, Tim Holden and Allyson Schwartz.

Minimum wage. The House passed, 348-73, a bill to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour over 26 months and provide about $17 billion in domestic spending. The legislation was later combined with HR 2206 (above).

A yes vote was to raise the minimum wage.

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

Voting no: Pitts.

Is there a way we could get Pitts forcibly transplanted below the Mason-Dixon line somewhere? His votes are almost beyond parody at this point.

Lobbyist oversight. The House passed, 396-22, and sent to the Senate a bill to increase regulation and public scrutiny of the thousands of registered lobbyists on Capitol Hill. The bill (HR 2316) requires lobbyists to publish detailed reports of their activities on the Internet and imposing jail time for violations. The House also passed, 382-37, a bill (HR 2317) requiring lobbyists to file quarterly Internet disclosures of their "bundling" activities. Bundling is combining scores or hundreds of small individual donations into large campaign contributions to members of Congress.

All Philadelphia-area representatives voted for both bills.

Gasoline prices. The House passed, 284-141, and sent to the Senate a bill to give the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general tools for prosecuting energy firms suspected of charging "unconscionably excessive" wholesale or retail prices.

A yes vote was to pass HR 1252.

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

Voting no: Pitts.

By the way (as noted here), Pitts also voted against against HR 5253 last year directing the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and prosecute price-gouging by sellers of gasoline and other fuels.

U.S. attorneys. The House passed, 306-114, and sent to President Bush a bill to repeal a USA Patriot Act provision used by the administration to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. The provision is central to the ongoing controversy over the administration's firing of U.S. attorneys.

A yes vote was to pass S 214.

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

Voting no: Pitts.

Here’s more on the provision (please run again against Pancake Joe next year, Lois, by the way – what a laughingstock).

Murtha dispute. The House killed, 219-189, a GOP bid for a reprimand of Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.) for his official conduct. The GOP alleges Murtha vowed improper legislative action against a Republican member who had upset him.

A yes vote opposed any reprimand of Murtha.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz and Sestak.

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

Sounds like much ado about nothing; Rogers acts like he’ll vote to kill a $23 mil earmark in Murtha’s district, Murtha stands up and threatens in return…if Rogers is going to make that kind of noise, he should expect that kind of response, though it sounds like, “no blood, no foul” to me.

Somehow I have a feeling that if the Dems sought motions to reprimand Repugs on a “tit for tat” basis, nothing at all would get done.

And by the way, Murtha apologized.

Senate

War funding. Senators approved, 80-14, and sent to President Bush a bill providing $96 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and raising the minimum wage (HR 2206, above).

All Philadelphia-area senators voted for the bill.

Including Bob Casey, who totally caved on Reid-Feingold; I hold him to a different standard than other Dems because he was elected to change things (and the answer to the question, by the way, is no – I’ll never let him forget that vote.)

Immigration. Senators refused, 66-29, to strip a pending immigration bill (S 1348) of its section providing America's 12 million illegal immigrants with legal status if they pay heavy fines, clear criminal checks and meet other requirements.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted to keep the legalization program.

Guest workers. The Senate (voted) 74-24 to scale back the guest-worker program in a pending immigration bill (S 1348, above). The vote capped guest-worker visas at 200,000 annually, down from 400,000 or more in the underlying bill.

A yes vote was to scale back the guest-worker program.

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.).

Regarding the guest worker program, I came across this from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in this article (probably the most astute words on this subject I’ve heard yet from a Repug)…

Mr. Bloomberg was especially critical of the guest-worker provision of the Senate bill, strongly supported by many in his own Republican Party. Immigrants would enter the country for three stints of two years each, going home for one year between each stint and returning home permanently after the third.

“The guest-worker program is a joke,” he said. “Nobody’s going to go home for a year and come back. Nobody could ever enforce that. Nobody in their right mind would ever try to do it.”

Makes me wonder why Arlen voted against scaling it back, then.

As of now, Congress is in recess until June 4, which means that I won’t be able to post on their votes for the next couple of weeks.