This is a profile of another BushBlueDog in participation with the BushDog campaign.
Please sign up with this effort to identify and target BlueDog Democrats.
One of the first steps Joe Donnelly took after winning his election in Northern Indiana's 2nd District was to join the Conservative BlueDog Democratic Caucus. He constantly states how he wants to join with his friends across the aisle and has worked hard with other Bluedogs to undermine the formation of a united Democratic caucus to end the occupation in Iraq and cause further erosion of civil rights and the Constitution.
The two votes that stand out the most are 1) his vote with a minority of other Democrats and most Republicans to fully fund the supplemental funding Bill supporting Bush's escalation of the war and 2) to vote to give the Administration warrantless eavesdropping power. He has indicated in private meetings that he intends to continue to support the Bush Iraq strategy while expressing doubts about its effectiveness. Donnelly voted AGAINST the McGovern Bill on Iraq which was supported by the majority of the caucus to begin the process of redeployment and withdrawal of troops last Spring and to be compeleted by the end of this year. In public statements, he has advocated benchmarks but has no real enthusiasm for any timelines and would rather see them left out.
The second vote was to join with only 40 other Democrats and most Republicans to pass the revision of the FISA act which gave the Bush Administration the ability to eavesdrop on US citizens without warrant or independent oversight. Donnelly has justified his vote as one that is necessary given the large amount of "chatter" he was told existed in July. In an interview in August, Rep. Donnelly said that he believed we must "balance" civil liberties with the war on terror, parroting the Bush Administration erosion of Constitutional rights embodied in the US Constitution. See Vote-Smart for all of his votes.
More BlueDog Actions
Other Conservative actions taken by Donnelly which have led to a 73.64% rating by progressive punch, are to vote against stem cell research which he claims violates his conscience as a practicing Catholic, thus forcing upon the rest of us his religious views that research using embryos which are going to be destroyed should be banned.
Another vote he has taken in the short time he has been in office is AGAINST extending hate crimes legislation to gays/lesbians and the disabled. He is also a cosponsor with many Republicans of Federal legislation (HR 1063) that would further restrict abortion nationally. Fortunately, this legislation has little likelihood of passing this year, but it indicates how he would vote to restrict women's reproductive rights since Rep. Donnelly identifies himself as "pro-life".
And he has voted against giving any path to citizenship or legal status to immigrants in the country, preferring instead to support the far right Republican position of building fences, raiding employers, and rounding up and deporting illegals.
To be fair, Rep. Donnelly has some good votes such as voting for the Union Organizaton act (check card) and for the first supplemental bill funding the surge with timelines. But he had this to say in a Bloomberg article undermining timelines at a critical time when the Democratic leadership was meeting with Bush.
The Democratic-controlled Congress and Bush need to ``try to find that middle place, work together, get the troops funded,'' Donnelly, 51, told constituents last week at a town- hall meeting in Logansport, Indiana. If the withdrawal timelines are waived or eliminated, he said, ``So much the better.''
Taken in its entirety, many of Rep. Donnelly's votes are indistinguishable from the Bush Republican he replaced. He is a great disappointment to many in his District who voted to have a real Democrat stand up to correct the many mistakes of the previous Congress and the Bush Administration. Sadly, he has failed to do so.
Full disclosure: In 2006, I ran against Donnelly in the primary but supported him in the general election. The 2nd District is a swing District with strong labor and ethnic populations. Most of the population lives in the three counties in the North, two of which are strongly Democratic