Re: In Class of Colorful Freshmen, Meet the Most Contrarian

He'd get my vote.

Mike F.  



________________________________
From: Bruce Geerdes <[email protected]>
To: DADL (off topic) <[email protected]>
Sent: Fri, April 15, 2011 9:11:51 AM
Subject: [DADL-OT] In Class of Colorful Freshmen, Meet the Most Contrarian

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/us/politics/15freshman.html?_r=1&hp

In Class of Colorful Freshmen, Meet the Most Contrarian
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

WASHINGTON —Representative Justin Amash does not believe the
government should subsidize public broadcasting, vehemently opposes
abortion rights and thinks Democrats are wrong about spending. Yet he
has voted against every Republican measure that conforms to those
views.

Through April 12 Mr. Amash, a Republican who represents a swath of
southwestern Michigan, has not voted with the majority 25 percent of
the time, the most of any House Republican.

Mr. Amash, 30, the youngest member of the freshman class, stands out
like a patchwork quilt among 86 other colorful Republican freshmen. He
has voted against his party on important symbolic measures, like one
that would strip financing from Planned Parenthood, and those most
minor, like a measure to amend the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission
Act to extend its termination date.

He has even voted against the routine matter of approving the journal
of the previous day’s proceedings, because, he says, there is not
enough time to read it. (This is a bit like not clicking “I Agree” on
a hotel Wi-Fi agreement because you don’t want to read the fine
print.)

On Thursday, he said, he will vote against an agreement the leaders of
his party hatched with Democrats to keep the government open for the
rest of the year.

Often, when Mr. Amash agrees with the spirit of a measure, but not its
constitutional basis, he votes “present,” as he did on a bill to take
money from public broadcasting. If baffled colleagues seek an
explanation, they can find it on his Facebook page, where he
assiduously explains every vote.

“I follow a set of principles, I follow the constitution,” said Mr.
Amash, who keeps a picture of the seating chart for his Constitutional
law class from the University of Michigan on his office wall. “And
that’s what I base my votes on. Limited government, economic freedom
and individual liberty.”

He said he did not feel his defections had angered Republicans leaders
in the House.

“I don’t think they’ve been annoyed by the votes,” he said during a
brief interview as he walked through Capitol Hill on Wednesday. “I
think they respect my approach, and I respect theirs as well.”

If Mr. Amash has any dreams of rising in his chamber, he will have to
find a way to mimic the style of lawmakers who run contrariwise to
their leaders but maintain their respect, like as Representative Jeff
Flake of Arizona, and not that of those who are stars on Fox News but
not especially influential in the upper ranks of their own caucus,
like Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

In some ways, Mr. Amash’s voting record reflects his time as a
Michigan state representative, when he was known as “Mr. No,” for his
proclivity for voting against the majority of legislation before him.
In that case, however, Mr. Amash was largely against the policies
underlying most of the bills, which reflected Democratic control.

His contrarian ways sometimes made for odd alliances in Michigan,
where he lined up against his Republican colleagues to oppose tax
breaks for the film industry, and teamed up with a far-left-leaning
lawmaker from the Detroit area to make sure legal-defense budgets for
indigent criminal defendants were more uniform.

But here in the 112th Congress, Mr. Amash says most of his no or
“present” votes generally reflect his lack of constitutional
convictions about a bill, or the fact there was not time to read it.
Some of the constitutional violations in the bills favored by his
party mates “are pretty apparent,” he said. “We review each piece of
legislation very carefully,” he said. (In the case of the spending
bill, he does not believe it cuts spending enough, in keeping with
other conservatives who plan to vote against the measure.)

Here is what he had to say on Facebook about an amendment to a
spending bill that would take away federal dollars from Planned
Parenthood, on which he voted present: “While I oppose abortion
funding, the language, as drafted, violates my conservative approach
to legislating.”

He added: “Legislation that names a specific private organization to
defund (rather than all organizations that engage in a particular
activity) is improper and arguably unconstitutional. Moreover, the
legislation is easily thwarted because the organization may simply
change its name.”

Facebook is his preferred method of vote explanation over news
releases, interviews or other forms of traditional political
expression. “It is something I started doing in the Michigan
statehouse,” he said. “I use it to explain each and every vote.”

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