Congressman Eric Massa votes independent from Party Leadership
Rep. Massa stands up for his constituents by voting against Housing Bill
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today Congressman Eric Massa voted independent from his party leadership on the $75 billion Housing bill. Representative Massa said earlier in the week that he would vote against the bill as it was written at that point and today he stood by his word on the floor of the House of Representatives.
"I campaigned on a platform of standing as an independent voice and voting in the interests of my constituents, not a political party. Today I did just that because I didn't think the Housing bill delivered a proportionally fair amount of relief to the families of my district," said Congressman Massa moments after the vote. "With this in mind, I could not rationalize further deficit spending in the face of minimal assistance to the working families in our district. While there are a number of things that I did like in this bill, the projections in it demonstrated that it was largely targeted to States like California, Nevada and Florida where the housing crisis has hit the hardest, not Western New York. I support helping families refinance their adjustable rate mortgages to stay in their homes, but compared to many other states, Western New Yorkers would not benefit enough to warrant my vote."
There is no way I can raise money for someone espousing this level of stupidity. And seriously--because the bill passed, the stupidity bothers me a lot more than the ideology in this case. He admits the bill will help his constituents, and then claims he is standing up for his constituents by voting against it. Then, he follows that Orwellian reasoning by arguing that legislation that he admits will not only people in his district, but also help people in other districts, should be opposed out of selfish spite because it doesn't help his district disproportionately.
Someone who thinks like this should not be in Congress. Members of the legislative branch should not only vote for legislation that disproportionately benefits their own districts. If you say that a piece of legislation will help people, but you oppose that piece of legislation because your corner of the country does not disproportionately benefit from it, then you have displayed not only an abusive relationship to members of your own district, but a rather shocking level of antipathy toward the residents of the other 434 congressional districts. Does Eric Massa actively dislike the people who live outside of his district? Given that he said that the housing bill will help them, but that he voted against it anyway, it is hard to conclude otherwise.
Really, Massa's line of reasoning is so bad here, I am tempted to submit a modified version of this blog post as an op-ed to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. It is more than a little hypocritical for someone who raised $386K from Act Blue, and $554K from PACs to be so willing to give people outside his district the middle finger. If even 5% of that money came from the NY-29, it would be a shock.
