 This afternoon, I surfed around on Thomas looking at recent roll call votes to see what our local Congressman, Michael Burgess has been up to. A lot of the votes taken in Congress are on procedural matters, so it's easy to miss the little nuggets that give you true insight on the character of your elected representative.
One thing I had missed, but that The Texas Blue had picked up on was that 178 Republicans, Michael Burgess included, voted against H. Res. 1113 "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day"
Actually - they all voted FOR Mothers Day - at least the ones who could be bothered to show up and vote - before one Republican lemming, Todd Tiahrt of Kansas ran off the cliff and they all decided to follow him. Tiahrt waited until after the vote for H R 1113, then moved to reconsider - basically asking for a "redo". At that point, Democratic Congresswoman and mother, Kathy Castor of Florida moved to table the motion to reconsider. Sort of convoluted, but a YES vote on Castor's motion means "yes, to heck with Tiahrt's regrets. We voted for it, let it stand". A "no" vote meant: "We didn't mean to do that. Let us vote on it again". The second vote passed 237 - 178.
The Washington Post quotes Minority Leader John Boehner as saying:
"Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."
Uh, OK? 412 voted for it and 21 missed the vote. At least one of those was Republican Vito Fossella, who has drunk driving and zipper problems to deal with.
Now, sure - you could waste your time asking Michael Burgess why he would vote against a silly Mothers Day laudatory resolution. I'm sure he would be glad to waste 15 minutes or more of your time explaining how they only did it so they could vote for Mom again and get some of their colleagues back from their 4 martini lobbyist schmoozing lunch hour.
Yes, Michael Burgess would love for you to waste your time asking why he would so blindly vote along party lines for something so silly. Because the more time you spend asking about that, the less time you have to ask tough questions like:
- Why are we still in Iraq?
- What will it take to consider the job done? (this time)
- When will Congress do its job of oversight on the executive branch?
- Why does he always vote against the middle-class, and against consumers?
- Why does he vote against basic worker safety regulations, and living wages for hard working Americans while voting for tax cuts for dead rich people?
- Why does he want to increase the number of uninsured in this country?
- Why does he take campaign money from Oil and Gas companies, and then vote on legislation to give them corporate welfare?
- Why does he own stock in, and take campaign money from the pharmaceutical industry, and then vote on legislation favoring them at the expense of consumers and taxpayers?
- Would President Bush literally have to sodomize kittens in front of school children before Michael Burgess would break with the radical right and hold him accountable? Obviously seizing powers not granted in the constitution, tolerating and condoning corruption, and starting a war based on a lie, that kills 4,000 of our troops and hundreds of thousands of civilians while spending a trillion dollars is not enough.
Michael Burgess doesn't likely hate his own mother, or even yours. He just thinks they need some "tough love", and that the free market will eventually get around to putting value on the intangible things like a mother's love. (or peace, or freedom, or human rights, etc...)
Happy Mothers Day from Michael Burgess, and the Republican Party
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