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

I like his style but wonder how effective he'll actually be. It is nice to
warm yourself with your convictions, but one has to think that the primary
success of a political gadfly is to draw attention to himself rather than
actually accomplish anything. (This is where my inner pragmatist wars with
my inner idealist.)

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |*
*


On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 9:17 AM, Mike Findlay <[email protected]>wrote:

> 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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