Lebanon Democratic Blog

This is the third installment of my blog posts about Senator Specter’s “No Show Joe” advertisement. I had to do some research for this one.

Senator Specter claims Representative Joe Sestak missed 127 votes. I can neither confirm nor deny that statement. Unlike Senator Specter, I do not have the staff and the direct access to the database of the Clerk of the House of Representatives to count the votes. All I could do was go to the web site of the Clerk of the House of Representative and check the votes on the few specific days the ad listed.

I checked and printed the roll call for every vote on those days unless Senator Specter listed a specific bill for a date. I came up with 29 votes which I could identify in this manner.

Of the 29 votes 11 were unanimous votes.
Near unanimous votes were 11. I defined near unanimous as any vote where 5 or fewer House Members voted against a bill or resolution.
There were 9 votes where a bill or resolution was contested but passed.
There were 2 votes for bills or motions which failed.

First let me take the two votes which failed. One was a motion to adjourn the House. It failed mainly because most Democrats voted against adjournment.

The other vote which failed was on a more important issue. On January 18, 2009 there was a series of votes on the budget for the Departments of Commerce and Justice and for related agencies,most of the votes were on amendments. The vote which failed to pass the total Ayes was 165 and Noes 245. But please note 236 of the Noes were Democrats.

Among the Unanimous Votes were such vital issues as a resolution to “Commend the Real Salt Lake soccer club for winning the 2009 Major League Soccer Cup.” Another unanimous vote was a resolution for the “Korean War Veterans Recognition Act.” That vote was 421 to 0. Do not misunderstand I am a Korean War veteran myself but this was a symbolic resolution with no real world impact. Finally, there was a 423 to 0 vote “Recognizing the historical and national significance of the many contributions of John William Heismen to the sport of football.”

Not one of the votes which Senator Specter listed would have been changed if Representative Sestak would have been present and voting. Are there votes which would have been changed if Representative Sestak had voted? I do not know because the Senator gives no information. I do not even know what period of time the 127 votes refers to.

Senator Specter has a staff and access to the database of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. If there are votes of real importance, not things like recognizing National Dairy Month another one I did not list above, provide me with the dates and bill number. Without more information I have to assume this saying Joe Sestak missed 127 votes is just another smear on the reputation of an honorable man.

I suspect most of you have seen Senator Arlen Specter’s television ad “No Show Joe” by now. In case you are like me and do not have a television you can view the video on the web site Senator Specter set up to go with the ad.

There are so many problems with the ad and its web site that I cannot address them all here. For right now I will only address the most scurrilous claim in the ad. I will address some of the other issues in another blog post. They are unrelated to the subject of this post. (more…)

I just got home from the Vice-President’s rally for Senator Specter. It was a great time and the little band of veterans we rounded up at the last minute accomplished our purpose.

Our little group of veterans probably could not have achieved more at the rally if we had 100 people there. We did not think we would be able to get into the rally. The newspaper had said you had to get a ticket from Senator Specter’s office yesterday. As the woman issuing the tickets told me when I ask, due to a communications problem not as many people as expected could come. Basically they were desperate for any warm bodies. (more…)