A disagreement with Mike Capuano

[cos]

Several years ago, when the country was plagued with touchscreen voting machines that made re-counts impossible and gave no way to verify that their counts weren't buggy, Representative Rush Holt (one of the few scientists in Congress) was pushing a bill that would've required these machines to at least produce a paper printout at the time votes

Comments

[mdyesowitch]

What do you say to people who point out that he's in the bottom 10% of representatives during voting?

Your comment

[mdyesowitch]

Please explain your one line comment. Do you mean that he is present for fewer votes than 90% of all congressional representatives? If so, do you know how many votes he casts versus how many are called? There are also different grades of voting: significant votes versus normal business versus frivolous votes. Do you have a breakdown? Please explain, after all, the Democratic primary is tomorrow, 11/08/09. Thanks.

Re: Your comment

[mdyesowitch]

I don't know. My father-in-law said it last night at dinner when he asked why I was voting for Mr. Mayor.

Re: Your comment

[mdyesowitch]

It's just since the election that he's missed votes, and none of them significant. Before he began campaigning he had a 97% voting record, one of the best in Congress.

[miss_chance]

I think it's pretty cool that his office and he were responsive to your call, and changed their position based on a constituent's concerns... but shouldn't he have looked up those numbers himself originally, before deciding against it?

I hold your opinion and research on politics pretty highly in my esteem and may very well go with your endorsement over the endorsement of others of Coakley. But I do want to understand the implications of this story a little better.

[cos]

It was pretty complicated and took me a while to sort through the information. I did it because I really cared about this particular bill, but I can see how it would've been easy to misinterpret the legislation as something that provided a lot of new money without means-testing, and someone who believed that to be true might not have spent the time to dig around and find out otherwise, if he had a lot of other legislation to research at the same time - which he did. I never hold this kind of thing against a legislator, I assume they're all concentrating on learning a lot about a few things, and miss the details on a lot of other things. I hope that they have good reasons for their opinions based on what they do know, that they're willing to tell people straight up, and that they'll re-evaluate if they get new information or a persuasive new argument, which is what I provided

really care about voting accountability

[miss_chance]

I found your story instructive -- however, you made it clear that this was an issue about which Capuano cared significantly as mayor and that you respect him for it. It appears that his staff (and by extension, he) did not do sufficient due diligence on an issue about which he was passionate (as mayor at least). We need legislators who insist that their teams (at a minimum) and themselves (preferrably) are sufficiently informed about issues that matter to them that they make certain to have the information available. I don't think the Holt bill passed, did it? The benefit of the Mass. system is that I know that my vote will count today.

Also, your post doesn't clearly delineate why Capuano would be better (or Coakley would be worse) for those fence sitters like myself.

I'm left feeling that he only made a decision for the better vote because some voter (yourself) happened to make that information available to him with persistent effort and follow-through. A thin thread...

Welcome the discussion and your thoughts.

[xinie]

I was just telling DH (aka fiji) that I am voting for Capuano because of this:
http://www.examiner.com/a-2336797~US_Rep__Capuano__Cheney_should_face_prosecution.html
and he sent me to this post of yours as further rationale.

[lil_brown_bat]

I like Capuano because of something he said, not in a so-called town hall meeting, but to a constituent who is apparently of the classic town-hall "sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander" stripe. This constituent was holding forth on the subject of health care reform and opining that she didn't want to be paying for any goddamn socialist health care. Capuano asked her what her family did for health care, and she volunteered that she had a daughter and son-in-law who were covered 100% by MassHealth. "So," said Capuano, "It's all right for your family, but everyone else can go to hell?"

Anyone who give it to one of their own constituents, straight from the shoulder, when that constituent is full of shit, is worth a vote.

[mwsound]

I just tweeted your story and the Capuano campaign retweeted it. Very positive and probably just solidified my vote. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.