Comments on: My new Representative gets it

By: Whet Smith

Whet Smith — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:49:35 +0000

Official sites are supposed to be non-political. For the most part, unless you dig into press releases, they aren’t going to discuss their party on official websites. Campaign websites, on the other hand, are very political and will shout their party identification in your ear.

Hope that helps.

By: Mark Y.

Mark Y. — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:50:01 +0000

Growing up in Denver, there is a reason why Boulder is referred to as “25 square miles surrounded by reality.”

Mr. Plaitt’s speaking about how wonderful it is and how it represents his view is explains the deterioration of this once very good web site, as well as the above nutbar posts.

By: Shane Killian

Shane Killian — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:31:37 +0000

You can sign up at Congress.org to have them email to you every week what bills came up and how your Congresscritters voted on them. You can also easily write them there.

By: Steve S

Steve S — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 05:23:23 +0000

I can no longer stand to check my rep’s website. I’m in right wing hell in Huntington Beach, CA and my so-called rep is Dana Rohrabacher, and he is Bush.
Totally Bush.

By: Prowler67

Prowler67 — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:56:40 +0000

Looking into Colorado politics can be depressing. It has been a conservative state for as long as I can remember. Hopefully that is changing a bit. But now days it seems that neither candidate is worthy to be in office.

By: Seamyst

Seamyst — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 02:18:45 +0000

I don’t recognise my reps as being my reps – I really don’t care for them. However… all is not lost in West Virginia. We still have Senator Byrd, who has the guts (and seniority) to stand up for his beliefs – which mostly coincide with mine. And he’s been against the war from the start.

By: Quiet_Desperation

Quiet_Desperation — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:18:45 +0000

>>> But my opinion on this doesnâ€™t count, cause Iâ€™m Canadian:P.

Nonsense.

No one lives in Canada.

By: J. D. Mack

J. D. Mack — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:47:46 +0000

I actually look at the following page fairly regularly to see how my representative is voting:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/index.asp

So far, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has represented me and my views without complaint. But I hadn’t looked at this page in a while, so I checked it today. Shock! The house passed the “Chiropractic Care Available to All Veterans Act” by a unanimous vote! How did this get by me? Why didn’t I read about it in James Randi’s SWIFT?

The only representative to vote against this bill? Pete Stark, the highest level nontheistic elected official according to secular.org.

J. D.

By: gopher65

gopher65 — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:42:15 +0000

Yup DSalovesh, that has bugged me for years. DC should either be part of another state, or it should have a special status to allow its people to be represented in the congress. The current situation is unpalatable.

But my opinion on this doesn’t count, cause I’m Canadian:P.

By: Quiet_Desperation

Quiet_Desperation — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:38:10 +0000

I, for one, wish for some sort of Party-less system.

>>> so we have a shot at getting some good, fresh blood in there.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Nice one. Oh, wait, you were serious…

>>> Wiccan (Party)

Great. :-\ We’d have embryonic stem cell research, but a national health care system based exclusively on herbal remedies and chanting over crystals.

By: Brant D

Brant D — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:26:39 +0000

Having Musgrave as a rep isn’t nearly as bad as having James Inhofe as a senator while I was in Oklahoma (earning my undergrad in meteorology, coincidently).

By: Stanza

Stanza — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:08:59 +0000

John W & Gary A have hit the nail on the head, especially with the entropy comment. Although it’s good to hear about the rare individuals in government who “get it”, the whole political process in the U.S. has become so mentally ill & counter-productive that the thought of supporting anyone’s political ambitions leaves me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

At this point, voting has become the equivalent of handing out sterile needles to junkies.

By: kingnor

kingnor — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:00:47 +0000

political party shoudln’t mater as long as the politician stands for what’s right.

I’ve never liked party lines.

By: Howard

Howard — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:24:41 +0000

A good friend of mine traveled up to Boulder every weekend to work for Udall’s campaign even though she couldn’t vote for him. I was glad to see he won.

By: DSalovesh

DSalovesh — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:10:21 +0000

I’m always interested to hear people complain about their elected representatives. I think mine are great – but I’m not without complaints:

I come from Chicago, where it mattered who represented you in the US Congress – and the state legislature, and the city council, and who your precinct captain was, and they “didn’t want nobody nobody sent”.

I’m now in Washington DC where that’s all still important I guess, but it doesn’t really count since we have no vote in the US Congress, and we have no state legislature or governor.

Thank goodness we still have a mayor and city council. Prior to the last election, I asked people I knew two questions – who they thought they wanted to be elected, and how they would feel if some of the other strong candidates won instead. Almost universally the answer was that they weren’t so much against the other candidates as they were for their favorite – the city wouldn’t be ruined one way or the other. It isn’t about red or blue here, it’s the specific shades that get people excited here.

Too bad the ultimate control still lies with the US Congress. It wasn’t too long ago that your representatives stepped in and prevented us from even counting votes cast in a non-binding referendum because they decided the results would be irrelevant. Has that happened lately in Colorado, or Arizona, or Louisiana? (Or Guam, the US Virgin Islands, or Puerto Rico?)

That means we currently need to rely on your representatives to allow us to fix incompetent leadership of our public schools, or to let us to consider asking our daily immigrant workforce from Maryland and Virginia to help pay for the roads they use (let alone asking our convention visitors and pleasure tourists to do so).

Folks who pay even more attention to this would have real numbers to put forth, but from what I remember, a large majority of people in the US don’t know that DC is in a unique situation in this regard. It leaves me wondering if the situation is by design or simple ignorance. Since we abhor ignorance, I just feel the need to mind or remind people that even if they strongly disagree with their current representatives, they could still have it worse.

Hey – how did that soap box get under my feet? Sorry about that. I don’t mean to hijack this discussion – there probably isn’t much more to say here about the topic anyway.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:06:21 +0000

Allard is a hack, good news is that he’s retiring in 08 so we have a shot at getting some good, fresh blood in there.

I think Salazar, being a freshman, treads lightly. While he’s not amazing, the alternative was Pete Coors.

By: Carey

Carey — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:04:23 +0000

I don’t know BA – I’d like to see less party identification and more talking about the issues. What incorrect assumptions would you make about a congressperson when you found out their party affiliation? How many Republicans support civil liberties and how many Democrats support fiscal responsibility (to use two common stereotypes)? More than we might think.

Do we really need political parties anymore? A candidate’s website can potentially list every possible issue and their stance on it, as well as providing contact information when your favorite issue isn’t listed. We don’t need to rely on delegates to choose candidates for our party any more. We have the ability to find the candidate that best matches our values – and whether that candidate is running on the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Wiccan, whatever ticket loses quite a bit of its meaning.

We have hundreds of TV channels where once we had 3. Why do we still have only 2 political parties?

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:42:36 +0000

Ah, Brett, that’s a good guess! You may be right. But what a silly rule that would be.

Writerdd, my sympathies.

By: Brett

Brett — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:25:41 +0000

I bet the party affilation not being listed is due to goverment issued websites can not be used for political party promotion. Remember email-gate with party email going out on government email? Just a guess

By: writerdd

writerdd — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:24:36 +0000

Lucky you, here in Longmont we have Marily Musgrave to represent us. Sigh.

By: NOYB

NOYB — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 10:54:32 +0000

NASA has definitely lost its way. I am hearing about layoffs at Goddard Space Flight Center. These talented people were working on earth science projects. Many have gone to NOAA.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:49:50 +0000

Politicians, just another name for lazy dead beats,,,at least for most of them. Every once in a while we get someone with cahones, but it’s becoming increasingly rare. Harry Trueman wouldn’t stand a chance in todays political market place, and Ab Lincoln would be just another hairy, homely wanna be. Ah well, thus goeth the Republic, slipping and sliding down the entropy slope.

Gary 7

By: John Paradox

John Paradox — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 08:16:49 +0000

Looks like he’s taking his dad’s views, one of my favorite ‘old’ politicians Morris Udall (from AZ.. my current residence), and his uncle Stewart Udall. I THOUGHT the name sounded familiar.

J/P=?

By: John W

John W — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 08:03:17 +0000

I would suggest that if you can’t find out what a politician stands for from their website, then their website is working perfectly well – at least from the politician’s point of view The last thing a politician wants a voter to know is what they believe, so long as the voter is left with the view that they believe what ever it is you want them to believe!

By: Philip

Philip — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 07:40:18 +0000

Fiscally conservative astrophysics major at Berkeley.

Need I say more? I don’t know if theres a politician alive who represents me!