Sep 13, 2005

The Stakeout: Katrina Relief No Vote Special Edition

We haven’t had any Stakeouts in a while because there hasn’t been much congressional news over the past two weeks, as Katrina coverage has dominated the discussion throughout the blogosphere. But a development late last week deserves a special edition, in large part because it was within the liberal blogosphere that a particular development first gained attention: the votes of 11 house Republicans against the Hurricane Katrina relief package.

Oliver Willis started the ball rolling last Thursday, and dubbed these 11 “Team Hate America.” Willis follows up today to relay a conversation between blogger and NJ-05 resident Eric Anderson and his Representative, Scott Garrett. Anderson wrote a letter to the editor condemning Garrett’s vote, and Garrett responded in the way that any 14-year-old would - he called Anderson to complain and tell him that he simply didn’t understand Garrett’s reasoning:

He asked me to write another letter saying that I now understand why he voted the way he did. He said he doesn’t want his family going around thinking he’s a “heartless son of a gun.” But the tone of his phone call (pissed), and the fact that he called me at my home, doesn’t lead me altogether away from that conclusion.

...The ball’s in Garrett’s court. He has to explain his vote to the people (his family included). I can’t do it for him. All he has to do is come out as loud and clear as I did in my letter, making it clear what he means. Please don’t call up people who write letters to the editor.

Seems to me that Garrett might be feeling some regret about his vote. Understandable, given the indefensibility of said vote, but that doesn’t mean he needs to berate private citizens for pointing that out in the free press.

John Hostettler (IN-09) is another member of this infamous team, and Vanderburgh County Sheriff Brad Ellsworth, who is challenging Hostettler in 2006, began to make him pay for this vote yesterday:

Vanderburgh County Sheriff Brad Ellsworth said Hostettler failed his constituents by not explaining why he voted against a bill that had support from the White House and both parties.

“When our country was in trouble, he cast a vote and went into hiding,” Ellsworth said during a news conference with Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, at an assisted living center in Evansville.

The problem with making unpopular votes is that they can be used against you in your next election. I guess Hostetler missed that unit back in high school.

Charles Kuffner has a good run down on the two members of the Texas delegation who voted against the relief package. Kuffner notes that both Joe Barton (TX-06) and Ron Paul (TX-14) claim to support relief, but didn’t like the specific bill. However, neither made an effort to offer an alternative :

Seriously, whatever Smoky Joe is trying to say here, the same holds true of him as it does of Ron Paul: Where’s his alternative plan? Unlike Ron Paul, Joe Barton is a loyal Republican team player who has the ear of the DeLays and Hasterts and can make things happen if he wants to. Where was he when this bill was being written? Why do so few of his colleagues share his concerns? If this is the best he can do, it’s pretty pitiful.

Shane Sklar, who is challenging Ron Paul in TX-14 in 2006, condemned this member of “Team Hate America” for his vote:

Ron Paul’s vote against aid for the victims of Katrina shows how out-of-step Paul is with the needs and values of his district, said Shane Sklar, Democrat for Congress.

“No single vote could better show how Ron Paul’s time has come and gone,” Sklar said.  “Like so many times before during his eight terms in Congress, Ron Paul only wanted to make a meaningless philosophical point, while the rest of country wants to come to the aid of the victims of Katrina.”

Greg Wythe also takes Paul to task for his vote, noting the location of Paul’s district (bordering the gulf coast) and also remarking on the lack of an alternative:

Paul says he’s not against federal aid in general ... just this bill. With that said, there ought to be a record to point to that indicates how Paul sees federal aid helping those in need, as there certainly are now. But since there’s no alternative for those 11 other than to carp and vote no, it serves as an act of trite irresponsibility. Remember, if Dems don’t vote for the GOP plan (even if there is a Dem alternative), they’re taken to task (“I don’t know how you lead a nation ...” anyone?). If they offer no less than a dozen alternative ideas on Social Security reform, they’re taken to task as not having a plan (to the point where even the MSM accepts it as gospel). But here we are with what appears to be a crystal clear case of irresponsibility with a Congressional vote. And it must be known. It must be a point for voters in Paul’s 14th Congressional district to reflect on. And ultimately, it must be another dangerous idea that deserves defeat.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (WI-05), he of “Take my gavel, turn off the lights, and run out of the hearing room” fame, also voted against the package because of what he claimed was a lack of accountability in the bill. Bill Christofferson asks the logical rejoinder to this excuse at the Xoff Files:

Now that [Sensenbrenner] has made it clear what his three criteria are for appropriations—accountability, accountability and accountability—it is safe to assume he won’t be voting to spend any more money on the war in Iraq.

The US has spent $200-billion so far in that nation of 26 million people. That’s about $7700 per capita, by my estimation, with a lot more to come. Sensenbrenner thought the Karina relief was too much, when it came it at about $8,500 per person.

NC-05 Rep. Virginia Foxx also voted against the bill, complaining about the lack of oversight in the relief package:

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, was the only member of the North Carolina delegation to vote against the additional relief money.

Amy Auth, a spokeswoman for Foxx, said she voted against the bill because there were no guidelines and no limits.

Auth said that Foxx was concerned because the bill did not provide accountability for how the money would be spent and because none of the money was allocated for reconstruction. She said that Foxx also believed that the amount was too big.

“Its three times the size of North Carolina’s budget,” Auth said.

To begin with, comparing the relief effort to North Carolina’s state budget is a ridiculous comparison. The relief package is larger than most state budgets, because it is being appropriated in response to a massive disaster that pulverized a major city and countless smaller towns and rural areas as well.

But perhaps more importantly, if Foxx wants to complain about the lack of oversight in the bill, she needs to target her attention to the Republican Leadership in the House. They were the ones who released the aid package sight unseen, with a closed rule that prevented the offering of any amendments to the aid package that could have, for example,  provided “accountability for how the money would be spent,” and made sure that “money was allocated for reconstruction.” And, it should be noted, every Republican on the Rules Committee voted against opening the bill to amendments. The Republican Leadership and the Republicans who supported them should be the ones that pay the price for these failures, not the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Steve King (IA-05) also voted against the relief package, and an editorial in the Sioux City Journal chastized him for attempting to make an ideological point over this issue:

Our fellow citizens are hurting mightily. They need assistance in so many different ways - and they need it now. America needs to get money - both public and private - into the pipeline immediately, then trust that those charged with distributing the funds do so prudently.

...King himself voted for massive transportation and energy bills earlier this summer and he continues to be a staunch supporter of what is an expensive war in Iraq. We’re not necessarily criticizing King for that, we simply are suggesting that there are many appropriate opportunities at the federal level for King or any other member of Congress to make a principled stand in the name of fiscal integrity. Relief for suffering hurricane victims isn’t one of them.

Lynn Westmoreland (GA-08) also raised the now familiar refrain of a lack of accountability when making his excuse for his vote:

“I certainly don’t want to keep any money away from the relief effort,” Westmoreland said, speaking from the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

But he said Congress approved the extra money without imposing any fiscal controls, which would help guarantee that the federal aid reaches the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

If he didn’t want to “keep money away from the relief effort” but wanted increased accountability, he should have voted against his party to open the bill to amendment, pure and simple.

Same exact thing goes for Butch Otter (ID-01):

Otter says he voted against the bill because it’s simply irresponsible to spend such large sums without knowing if the money will truly benefit the hurricane victims.

And also for Jeff Flake (AZ-06):

Flake explained Thursday that he is not opposed to spending money to aid the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts for victims along the Gulf Coast, including New Orleans, but thinks those dollars should be offset with cuts in other federal spending.

And on Friday Flake added, “$50 billion is simply too much to give FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) all at once and ensure proper oversight.”

Tom Tancredo (CO-06) is now making the excuse that his vote against the relief package was a “protest vote”:

“No one wants to withhold relief funding for survivors of Katrina,” said Will Adams, press secretary for Tancredo. He added the vote raised “the red flag to show there’s something wrong going on here.”

Adams said Tancredo was concerned about the lack of debate and felt the bill did not demand enough accountability on how the money will be spent.

Again, if oversight was the problem, he has no one but the Republican Leadership to blame. And voting against an aid package that would help out hundreds of thousands of Americans whose lives have been overturned by the storm seems an odd choice for a protest vote; as The QandO Blog points out, most Republicans called John Kerry’s vote against the $87 billion war supplemental a vote “against funding our soldiers,” even though Kerry voted for an alternative bill that would have solved the funding questions he raised. Tancredo voted against the relief package without even offering an alternative, so I’m sure he was the first in line to defend Kerry, right?

Finally, Steve Soto points out that of these eleven who voted against the relief package, seven had no problem rushing back to Washington in order to vote in favor of the Terri Shiavo legislation last fall:

Per Oliver Willis, we find out that these 11 House GOP conservatives from the “culture of life” party all voted against the $51 billion Katrina aid package today. And yet seven of them rushed to vote for the Terri Schiavo legislation, and the other four chose not to vote (Barton, Flake, Hostettler, and Paul) although it was clear that it would pass.

All of the members of “Team Hate America” make the excuse that they wanted the bill to be a bit different: more oversight, more specificity, more budgetary controls, etc. However, the fact is that none offered an alternative, and, perhaps more importantly, none stood up against the Republican Leadership’s closed rule that prevented amendments from being offered.  If they were unhappy with the relief package, they had only themselves and their own leadership to blame.

Come November 2006, each and every one of these Representatives will surely regret their decision to vote against this relief package. The victims of Hurricane Katrina needed help immediately, and these eleven all failed them.

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