Where The Rubber Meets The Road (5/29/09)

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

Federal aviation budget. Voting 277-136, the House passed a bill (HR 915) authorizing $70 billion for federal aviation programs through fiscal 2012. In part, the bill provides $39.3 billion for operating the Federal Aviation Administration, $16.2 billion for airport improvements, and $13.4 billion for modernizing the air-traffic control system.

A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), 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.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.) and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).

“Now how on earth could Joe Sestak and Joe Pitts actually be on the same side of an issue?” I hear you ask.

Well, both of their congressional districts overlap the vicinity of Philadelphia International Airport. And as noted here, Sestak has fought the FAA on the matter of redesign of the flight plans of the airport for some time (the way the airport is configured, their districts end up dealing with the bulk of the noise from plane traffic – more info is here).

To say that these are protest votes is an understatement. And if I lived in either of their districts, I’d probably applaud both of them for it (well, maybe not Pancake Joe...).

Tobacco commerce. Voting 397-11, the House passed a bill (HR 1676) requiring sellers of large quantities of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco in interstate commerce to comply with state tax laws and register with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATFE). The bill awaits Senate action.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

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

Senate

War appropriations. Voting 86-3, the Senate passed a bill (HR 2346) to appropriate $91.3 billion through Sept. 30 to fund U.S. war actions and international programs and respond to natural disasters at home. The bill must be reconciled with a $96.7 billion House version.

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

Not voting: Thomas Carper (D., Del.).

Guantanamo Bay. Voting 90-6, the Senate stripped HR 2346 (above) of $80 million requested by the Obama administration for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The bill still contains language preventing the release of any of the approximately 240 Guantanamo prisoners into the United States for trials.

A yes vote was to remove the funding.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, Lautenberg, Menendez, and Specter.

I think thus far that, if Obama has an “Achilles heel” when it comes to any issue, this is it.

And if so, the blame lies partially with himself for, to date, not spelling out in concrete terms what he wants to do with those at Guantanamo (hindered partly by the fact that a lot of these cases are under review), as well as those Democrats who absolutely cower in the face of NIMBY protests from their constituents (with the sentiments expressed here by Jon Tester and Max Baucus of Montana being typical; file this under “suppose they built a prison, and nobody came?”).

I think we all agree that our president could sell ice to the proverbial Eskimo, but to bring this country around to his way of thinking on this may take his greatest sales pitch ever (and again, as far as I’m concerned, we already have people capable of really bad stuff incarcerated not that far from where I reside already, so I’m not all that sympathetic to the protest here).

This week, Congress is in Memorial Day recess until the week of June 1.