Melissa Bean is the Representative from Illinois House District 8. She is a Blue Dog Democrat who was elected from an historically Republican district in 2004. Republicans see her as vulnerable and will certainly target the district in 2008 the way they did in 2006.
Bean is a conservative Democrat from a conservative district. Like the other Blue Dogs, her voting record is a source of frustration to progressive Democrats. Sometimes it seems her only service to Democrats is that she is another caucus member that allows for a Democratic majority.
She published a letter in the Chicago Tribune recently about the recent House vote for ENDA, which prohibits discrimination against gays and lesbians in the workplace. As I was reading the letter, I thought it had been written by someone like Jan Schakowsky, and was shocked to see it written by Bean. It felt good to know that an issue like anti gay discrimination is now considered mainstream enough even for Blue Dogs.
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