Remember my earlier blog about Citizens United and special interest dollars? Well, Crossroads GPS--the organization put together by Karl Rove and which was quite instrumental in the 2010 congressional races--has dropped some money on Montana television targeting Senator Tester. You can read about the ad and watch it here.
A couple of points about the ad. First, there's nothing new here. Without saying so directly, this is a standard "[INSERT DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE NAME] is too liberal for [INSERT STATE]" type ad. It focuses on one of the key reputational issues that divides the Democratic and Republican Party: taxes and spending. And it's an issue that is salient to voters--not only in Montana, but nationally.
Second, the ad makes the point that Senator Tester voted five times to increase the public debt. All the votes are cited at the bottom of the ad, so you can carefully check the veracity of the ad's claims. And yes, the claims are true: Senator Tester voted on all five occasions to increase the public debt limit (although, in some cases, the debt limit increase was part of a larger bill). The votes are very carefully chosen--in all five cases, Congressman Rehberg voted no.
But, as I tell my students, votes need to be placed into context. As such, there are two important points to be made about increasing the public debt limit.
First, votes to increase the public debt are tied to votes on the budget--which is submitted by the administration. It is the job of the administration to submit a budget with its priorities--and these priorities often represent key cleavages between the parties. As such, they are partisan votes. The president's party supports the budget, and the opposition party does not. Very simply put, Tester--as a member of the president's party--supported his president's budget. Congressman Rehberg, as a Republican--did not.
Second, the majority party must govern so it must pass a budget--balanced or not. If the majority party in Congress does not pass a budget and does not increase the public debt limit, the country goes into default. All kinds of bad things can happen when this occurs, and the majority party would squarely shoulder the blame. Passing budgets and increasing debt limits is what governing is all about.
Watching the ad, it appears that the Democrats and Senator Tester are profligate spenders--and when you check the record--Republicans seem to be the champions of fiscal responsibility. But, if we go beyond these votes to look at previous congresses when the Republicans and Congressman Rehberg were both in the majority and had to govern, we find both the Republican majority and Congressman Rehberg voted to increase the public debt limit.
For example, in the 107th Congress (the first in which Congressman Rehberg served), the Congressman and his party voted to increase the public debt limit on Senate Bill S2578 (roll call vote is here).
In the 108th Congress, again, we see the Republican majority and the Congressman voting to increase the public debt limit on Senate Bill 2986 (see roll call vote here).
Due to changes in the House rules, the record is a bit harder to trace in the 109th Congress--the vote on raising the public debt limit is not "clean". According to THOMAS, the bill to raise the public debt limit (House Joint Resolution 47) passed pursuant to House Rule XXVII and House Resolution 95--which the Republican majority and Congressman Rehberg supported (see roll call vote here).
Heck, even Dick Cheney voted to increase the public debt limit when he served as a House member in the 100th Congress. He did so on House Joint Resolution 324, Roll Call 330 (sorry, no link, as I had to search Lexis Nexis Congressional Universe which is only available to subscribers).
Both parties are to blame for the debt situation in which we now find ourselves. Both parties have passed budgets that have increased spending and increased the public debt. Even Republicans serving with Ronald Reagan as president supported budgets which have added to the public debt. Neither party should shoulder the blame alone, and frankly, neither should Senator Tester.
Of course, Crossroads GPS is an independent organization that cannot legally coordinate with Congressman Rehberg's Senate campaign. He had nothing to do with the advertisement, and both candidates are well-aware that these kinds of ads--while not telling untruths--do not tell the whole story. This is yet another example of how the Citizens United decision allows independent organizations not accountable to the electorate to wrest control of the campaign agenda from the candidates and their parties.
Showing posts with label 2008 congressional campaign. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008 congressional campaign. Show all posts
Friday, July 8, 2011
Sunday, March 9, 2008
All but Ignored: The 2008 Congressional Races
With all the attention given to the presidential race, the race for Congress has been all but ignored by the mainstream media.
To get a feel for how the fall congressional elections are going to play out, political scientists and pundits look to special elections as indicators of future election trends. We had one such special election yesterday in Illinois, where Republican Jim Oberweis lost the race for Illinois' 14th Congressional district to Democrat Bill Foster, 52% to 48%.
What makes this race an interesting bellwether for fall congressional elections is the fact this seat is a heavily Republican district that had been represented by none other than former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
Given the resources that the Republican Party poured into keeping this seat in Republican hands AND the fact that the demographics greatly favored Republican candidates, this does not bode well at all for Republican chances to recapture the House. In fact, I would put their chances of so doing at less than 5 percent at this point. Given that Democrats captured all the competitive seats and some generally Republican seats in 2006, one might have expected that the pendulum would swing back to the GOP in 2008 when a presidential race would invigorate the base and move some of those seats back into the Republican column.
Given the heavy turnout in Democratic primaries around the country and the fact that Republicans can't keep a seat that they had held for 20 plus years, I would anticipate at this point that the Democrats will continue to build their House majority, capturing anywhere from 5 to 10 seats.
To get a feel for how the fall congressional elections are going to play out, political scientists and pundits look to special elections as indicators of future election trends. We had one such special election yesterday in Illinois, where Republican Jim Oberweis lost the race for Illinois' 14th Congressional district to Democrat Bill Foster, 52% to 48%.
What makes this race an interesting bellwether for fall congressional elections is the fact this seat is a heavily Republican district that had been represented by none other than former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
Given the resources that the Republican Party poured into keeping this seat in Republican hands AND the fact that the demographics greatly favored Republican candidates, this does not bode well at all for Republican chances to recapture the House. In fact, I would put their chances of so doing at less than 5 percent at this point. Given that Democrats captured all the competitive seats and some generally Republican seats in 2006, one might have expected that the pendulum would swing back to the GOP in 2008 when a presidential race would invigorate the base and move some of those seats back into the Republican column.
Given the heavy turnout in Democratic primaries around the country and the fact that Republicans can't keep a seat that they had held for 20 plus years, I would anticipate at this point that the Democrats will continue to build their House majority, capturing anywhere from 5 to 10 seats.
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