Steve Soto had a post
last night that discussed the efforts to repeal Bush's suspension of the minimum wage in the Gulf Coast. He particularly focused on a group of turncoat Democrats, who were defined by:
No Co-Sponsor Gulf Coast Wage Cut Repeal
Voted for Bakruptcy Bill
Voted for Estate Tax Repeal
And the eleven members are:
Bean, Melissa L., Illinois, 8th
Bishop Jr., Sanford D., Georgia, 2nd
Boren, Dan, Oklahoma, 2nd
Boucher, Rick, Virginia, 9th
Cramer, Robert E., Alabama, 5th
Cuellar, Henry, Texas, 28th
Davis, Lincoln, Tennessee, 4th
Edwards, Chet, Texas, 17th
Gordon, Bart, Tennessee, 6th
McIntyre, Mike, North Carolina, 7th
Salazar, John T., Colorado, 3rd, brother of Ken, US Senator.
Now look at that list of states. Georgia, Oklahoma, Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Colorado.... and ILLINOIS?!
Bean ALSO cast a vote for CAFTA, as noted by David Sirota.
Now this name may be familiar to some of you. That's because... she was endorsed by Howard Dean, and DFA.
This is amazing to me! A woman running in a tremendously Democratic state (albeit in a center-right district), and whose election was financed almost completely by the netroots, has chosen to turn her back on every major progressive issue since her election. She's supported every Republican machination to undercut American workers and to erode the American standard of livint. And to add insult to injury, her endorsements include AFL-CIO, AFSCME, UAW, and eight other national unions!
It's safe to say this wasn't what Dean was expecting when he supported her. In fact, in a Mother Jones interview from 2004, in which he specifically discussed supporting Bean, he laid out what he expected from DFA candidates:
The core values are what you'd expect from the kind of people who supported me. The charter of the organization said basically, socially progressive and fiscally conservative. They've got to toe the line on money, because if you don't, you really hurt poor people by promising them programs you can't ultimately fund. Or else you fund it for two years and then you take it away. So there's a wide ideological spectrum, though the right is pretty much excluded. But it's health insurance, it's public education, it's strong environmental protection, and it's a moral foreign policy with moral leadership. And of course jobs, which is also a big one.
JOBS. Every single one of these detailed votes has hurt American's abilities to find and keep a job (CAFTA alone will send millions overseas). Every one of them has hurt the ability of people who've found jobs to lead a decent life. Yet Bean has unapologetically voted for each of them.
So what's up Illinoisans? Should we be mounting a primary challenge on Bean? Or is McHenry county and its environs just SO far gone that a pro-CAFTA, anti-bankruptcy, anti-minimum wage, anti-estate tax representative is the best the left can do?