Although only a handful of moderate and conservative Democrats abandoned their leaders during party-line votes on the economic stimulus law (PL 111-5), the group of vulnerable Democrats branded the omnibus spending bill as a budget buster and questioned whether the mortgage bill would raise interest rates on average home-owners and cause some struggling homeowners to rush to bankruptcy.
The defections could cause heartburn for Democratic leaders charged with ushering through Obama's three biggest priorities: a health care overhaul, a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon emissions and his fiscal 2010 budget blueprint. The president might also have trouble winning their votes for an anticipated second financial bailout package.
"My job is not to be a rubber stamp for the president or Democratic leadership, but to be a voice for the people that elected me," Giffords said. "I voted for the stimulus, but found I could not vote for the omnibus." She faces a tough 2010 campaign in a state that will be dominated by McCain's expected re-election to his Senate seat.
Read the rest...
Side note but still related to the Blue Dog Democrats- Looks like the "bill to give the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House of Representatives" has been pulled because Democratic leaders think they Blue Dog Democrats won't get behind the bill.
DC, despite what Pelosi and Reid and the far left of the Democratic party think, is NOT a state unto itself, therefore constitutionally, they do not have the right to their own Representative.
The bill was patently unconstitutional because under Article 1, Section 2, only states have representatives, and D.C. isn’t a state. (That idea is reinforced by the XXIII Amendment, under which D.C. voters are allowed to vote in presidential elections, and thus appoint electors to the Electoral College, “…equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State….”)
Looks like the Blue Dog Dems understand how vulnerable they will be if they follow Pelosi like little robots. Their constituents are their priority and it is about time they started showing backbone again.
.