Basically almost the entire Texas delegation from both sides (24 of 32 by my count) voted No, which makes very little sense given that most of them are in safe seats thanks to the GOP's efforts to gerrymander Texas districts in their favor. If this thing gets through, that's the place to get the votes from. Maybe toss in a few billion for NASA or somethng on the end of the bill and watch 'em switch sides.
Full list of Nays from Texas (Dems italicized): Louis Gohmert Ted Poe Samuel Johnson Ralph Hall Jeb Hensarling Joe Barton John Culberson Al Green Michael McCaul K. Conaway William Thornberry Ron Paul Sheila Jackson-Lee Randy Neugebauer Nick Lampson Ciro Rodriguez Kenny Marchant Lloyd Doggett Michael Burress Solomon Ortiz Henry Cuellar Raymond Green John Carter
For votes: Kevin Brady (R) (Woodlands/Orange) Chet Edwards (D) (Waco area) Charlie Gonzalez (D) (San Antonio area) Kay Granger (R) (Fort Worth area) Rueben Hinojosa (D) (Goliad) Eddie Bernice Johnson (D) (Dallas area) Silvestre Reyes (D) (El Paso area) Pete Sessions (R) (Dallas area) Lamar Smith (R) (San Antonio area)
I'm really surprised Kevin Brady voted for the measure, since he touts himself as a fiscal conservative.
He's got a lot of bankers as contributors. He was my rep for a while, and he'd consistently vote for corporate welfare.
Its like the prisoners dilemna. I think most that have a basic understanding want the bill to pass, but no one wants to vote for it. There was probably quite a bit of last second changes to say that even though it passed: "I voted against giving the greedy wall street people our money!"
The official record was that it passed on voice vote, but failed when the votes when a roll call was requested. Now whether Pelosi said it passed even though it really failed, or many Ayes switched to Nays when they knew they'd be on record is anyone's guess.
No. That's the point of a roll call vote. 1. To make sure the speaker is correct in her count. 2. To make sure the vote is on record.
Culberson on CNBC just now. He said that there would be a bill passed by Thursday night/Friday morning. Its political pandering and I will never support that guy again. He keeps saying the Democrats could have passed the whole thing and is not talking about his vote of no. Karen Finerman destroyed his notion of the Mark-to-market rule as being the solution. She said that if he truly believes the mark to market rule shows assets worth less then they are then why would he be against the bailout as the US is then buying the assets even cheaper. He just went onto i'm a fiscal conservative and my daughter doesn't need this debt etc. I hate politics and and now despise Culberson.
Interesting info from 538.com: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/swing-district-congressmen-doomed.html Retiring Congresspeople voted 23-2 for the bill Congresspeople in non-competitive races voted 198-197 against Congresspeople in competitive races voted 30-8 against The stupidity of all this is that the polls were starting to show people coming on board to support the bailout. I suspect this is going to backfire on all those idiots. They voted against protecting the US economy.
There's another vote on Thursday - we'll see what happens once the bill doesn't have Bush's politically poisonous fingertips all over it. I'm sure the basics of the bill won't be drastically different by then, but I suspect once the messaging is more favorable (the "Save America's Economic Freedom Act" instead of "Bush's Bailout Plan"), at least some will change their vote. Yea, I know. Pretty sad.
The name was the problem. When they changed the name of the estate tax to the death tax the approval numbers shot up like 20 or 30 percent. What upsets me about the Republicans that voted against it is that the democrats will appeal to the very liberal democrats that wanted groups like Acorn to get a piece of the gains. They will throw them that bone and the really leftist dems will go along with it. So the republicans get a weaker bill, just to say they went against it. I hate politics.
