Where The Rubber Meets The Road (10/03/08)

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 (and by the way, I also posted over here today).

House

Credit-card rules. Voting 312-112, the House sent the Senate a bill (HR 5244) setting pro-consumer rules for credit-card firms. In part, the bill would allow card holders to set their own limits above which transactions cannot be processed; set 18 as the minimum age for obtaining a card in most circumstances; require 45 days' notice of rate increases while allowing existing balances to be paid at the previous rate; and prohibit changes in contract terms until a card is up for renewal.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), H. James Saxton (R., N.J.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.) and Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.).

GOP credit-card plan. Voting 198-219, the House defeated a Republican motion to delay the effects of HR 5244 (above) until the Federal Reserve studied the bill and certified it would not shrink credit availability and damage the economy.

Delaware Rep. Castle said: "What we are simply trying to do in this is to make sure that there is not a reduction in the availability of credit to certain groups, small businesses, veterans or minorities."

A yes vote backed the GOP plan.

Voting yes: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, Saxton and Smith.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz and Sestak.

This tells us that Mike Castle receives anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of his campaign contributions from the financial services industry (the number varies depending on whether or not you add in individuals who work for those companies to the donations made to their corporate PAC). The post also tells you that Castle was as deceptive about his answer concerning corporate contributions as he was about the reason for his motion for HR 5244 (trying to “run out the clock” on the deliberations for the bill before Congress adjourned).

Castle’s opponent is Karen Hartley-Nagle; to find out more, click here – don’t have polling numbers, but I’m sure she has an uphill fight, to say the least.

Mental-health parity. Voting 376-47, the House passed a bill (HR 6983) that would require private insurers to cover mental illness and chemical addiction at the same level and cost that they cover physical ailments in the same policy. The Senate included a similar measure in HR 6049 (below).

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

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

Voting no: Pitts.

Not voting: Saxton.

This week’s stupid “No” vote by Joe Pitts (and as always, to help Bruce Slater, click here).

Senate

Tax-break extensions. Voting 93-2, the Senate passed a bill (HR 6049) to extend tens of billions of dollars in business, family, renewable-energy and education tax breaks due to expire at year's end. The bill contains a one-year fix of the Alternative Minimum Tax, whose cost of at least $64 billion would be added to the national debt. The bill also would require parity between mental and physical health-insurance coverage.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) and Arlen Specter (R., Pa.).

Voting no: Thomas Carper (D., Del.).

Not voting: Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.).

Dem Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota also voted against this bill in addition to Carper; here is more information.

As the eNewsUSA post notes, it’s a positive development that the Senate finally passed legislation to spur development of alternative energy, though lumped into it was funding for development from oil shale, tar sands and liquid coal that “can cause twice the global warming pollution as conventional oil” (probably one of the compromises necessary to get this passed at all).

The Inquirer tells us that Congress had planned to adjourn for the year after completing work on the bailout bill - I have no reason to believe that won't happen.

Update 10/6/08: Oops, my bad - they're back at it (and well they should be, on second thought).