The following 26 "Democrats" sold out to the religious right and eroded our religious freedoms by voting for HR 2679, the bill prohibits attorneys from collecting fees from winning First Amendment Religious Expression cases. The clear intent of the bill was to discourage lawsuits against right-wing elected officials imposing their version of right-wing Christianity on the rest of us.
I submit that when "Democrats" sell out to the religious right, this is no longer a red vs. blue issue, but an issue that deals with our core values as Americans. If these so-called "Democrats" have a problem with our Constitution, then let them come out and say so. But instead, they pay lip service to the First Amendment while repeatedly selling out to the Religious Right.
Barrow
Berry
Boren
Boyd
Cardoza
Costa
Cramer
Cuellar
Davis (TN)
Gordon
Herseth
Hinojosa
Lipinski
Marshall
Matheson
McIntyre
Melancon
Ortiz
Peterson (MN)
Rahall
Ross
Salazar
Scott (GA)
Skelton
Spratt
Taylor (MS)
In addition, the so-called "Democrats" listed in bold not only sold out to the Religious Right, they also sold out to Tom Tancredo and the Minutemen on immigration and sold out to the Bush administration on torture.
This leaves 16 so-called "Democrats" who vote hardcore Republican instead of vote like Democrats.
The obstacle we have to overcome is fear. Too many people fear that we will lose seats if we don't primary these people out of office. But the problem is that if we don't act, it will come back to haunt us in a few years.
Let's say we win and get a Democrat elected in 2008. But if we continually have Democrats vote like Republicans, nothing will ever get done. We will never be able to undo the damage the Bush administration has done to our civil liberties, because there are too many so-called "Democrats" who sell out to them.
Some people may accuse me of conducting a purity test. It is not -- it is an insistence that we have to have principles and have people in office who follow these principles. If someone is a freshman or had trouble getting reelected, then they have to do what it takes to get reelected. But most of these so-called "Democrats" don't have this problem. This is not a purity test, but an insistence that our Democrats defend our core American values, such as the First Amendment, the Habeas Corpus, and the Equal Protection Clause.
This is not a short-term problem, but a long-term one; Reagan had plenty of Democratic enablers who helped him run up the deficit, gut social spending, and enable the military industrial complex. We have waited far too long to take action against these enablers.