Open Left

Tooting your own horn... (0.00 / 1)

Once again, don't count on it. Matt and I were the people who got blogs fundraising for him in the first place.

Apparently this post was more of an opportunity to issue a self-congratulations than to actually criticize Massa. Or perhaps it was both.

If you don't raise for Massa, others will. I'm not one to let one vote or one issue stand in my way. This vote doesn't make him a Blue Dog. This vote doesn't make him any less progressive. We need people like Massa in Congress. I know I will be fundraising for him in 2010.

And if everyone in Congress voted on the same reasoning Massa uses here, then only people from high foreclosure districts would have voted for the bill. They didn't--not even close. Most of the highest foreclosure districts were in Republican areas, in fact.

If everyone voted on the same reasoning Massa utilizes, they would be doing their jobs: Representing the best interests of their district. That is why districts elect them. These aren't statewide elected officials like U.S. senators. These are representatives of individual districts.

While the last sentence of your comment is true, the same can be said of Democratic districts. Here in New York, the top five foreclosure districts are all blue. The foreclosure crisis doesn't discriminate. There were only seven Republicans that voted for the housing bill. I find that to be a bigger crime than what Massa did.

Massa's argument against the bill was, like it or not, a sound one. What can the Republicans offer? That they voted against the housing bill because it was sponsored by a Democrat?  

There's no such thing as illegal immigration. But there are illegal wars...

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by: robert.harding @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 08:14:28 AM CDT

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interests (4.00 / 2)

If everyone voted on the same reasoning Massa utilizes, they would be doing their jobs: Representing the best interests of their district.

Your operational definition of interests is rather narrow and parochial.  If every member of congress insisted that every bill disproportionately favour their district, nothing would ever pass.  By definition bills cannot favour every district.

Also, we expect Democrats to understand something of the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and the point of the legislation is not pork barrel redistribution (for which every member should insist on their fair share) but to solve a bigger economic problem - the cascade effects of mass forclosure on the whole economy.  So if the legislation had failed, would Massa's district be better served?  

Say there was a slow moving plague in California.  Should Massa vote against funding for a cure because the money doesn't go to his district?  Or is he supposed to understand curing the plague over there will prevent his constituents being afflicted?

Call it "enlightened self interest" if you want.  Best interest of the nation is best interest of your constituents.

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by: Daniel De Groot @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 08:36:41 AM CDT

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