My wife, Beth, had a letter to the editor published in MS magazine. Since she's not on dKos, I'll do the bragging for her. The letter is in the Summer issue; MS is now a quarterly.
Everybody on this blog should be writing LTEs to every periodical they read. Details of the letter below the jump.
MS had an article in their Spring issue about the Marianas and the near-slavery working conditions that exist there -- partly due to exemptions to many Federal laws. They reported several attempts in Congress to fix the problems. These were frustrated by the House leadership. Beth wrote to point out how one case "illustrates one flaw in the platitude 'Vote for the person, not the party.'" Republicans who cosponsored the particular legislation had enabled the leadership who bottled it up.
I have more important reasons to be proud of her, but this is one that others on dKos will share.
PS: MS has been on the scandal in the Marianas for some time. Only recently have they been joined by others on the left.
I've been asked for more. I can't get a URL; I don't think that MS puts LTEs on the web. Well, Beth won't enforce copyright against me. Here's the text:
'Rebecca Clarren's story demonstrates one flaw in the platitude: "Vote for the person, not the party." One bill introduced [in the U.S. Congress] to repair the shameful labor laws regarding the Marianas had 243 co-sponsors. It didn't get out of committee for those co-sponsors to vote on it.
If [the House of Representatives had a Democratic majority], the chair of the House Resources Committee would have been George Miller rather than Don Young; the House leadership would have been David Bonior and Richard Gephardt rather than Dennis Hastert and Richard Armey. The bill would have come to the floor and passed.
Party does matter.'
Beth's actual words were slightly stronger, but she also referred to present House officers rather than those prevailing when the particular bill came up. The [brackets] were added by the editors; I have omitted a few.