Not For Us To Know

By William A. Collins

              Congressmen,

              A sneaky crew;

              How they vote,

              They won’t tell you.

Of course every vote in Washington is public. The record flashes in bright lights on the walls of each chamber, and gets printed forever in the Congressional Record. No doubt you can find it online, too.

Where you can’t find it is in your local paper or on TV. Well, maybe once in a while the Hartford Courant and a few others will print a complicated piecemeal chart that Congress-watchers can penetrate. For practical purposes, though, once our guys board that stagecoach for Washington, we have precious little idea what they’re up to.

Yes, when they come home they love to talk. There are forums and bag lunches and lots of speeches about whatever. They even describe some votes that they’re especially proud of, and how important it is to pursue certain of their favorite causes. But other votes they don’t bother to mention, and local reporters, more experienced with police blotters than national policy, don’t know what to ask. It’s basically a free ride.

For example, how many of us realize that last month all five of our congressmen voted for public solidarity with Israel? This at the very moment Colin Powell was ostensibly trying to act as an honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians. Why throw such an insulting monkey wrench in those important talks? Probably for fear of losing Jewish campaign contributions. We’re not likely to hear much from our reps about that one.

And remember the war in Iraq? How did your guy vote? Well, in the House our three Republicans (Simmons, Shays, and Johnson) all voted for war. The two Democrats (Larson and DeLauro) voted against. Both our wimpy Democratic senators voted for it too, though 23 of their colleagues had the nerve to oppose. Strangely, Joe Lieberman and Chris Shays are our delegation’s biggest hawks. Lieberman started political life as a liberal reformer and switched sides –– Connecticut’s own Strom Thurmond, but without leaving the party. Shays was a conscientious objector as a young man. Now he’s all for war. Funny what politics does to you.

In the other direction, John Larson, after many years as a nebbishy lawmaker, was the only Nutmegger brave enough to vote against the monumentally wasteful Defense Budget. And his district makes a lot of those toys. Even liberal Rosa DeLauro couldn’t muster the nerve to vote no. It would probably dampen her continuing quest for party leadership.

Similar differences on defense arose in the Senate. Chris Dodd voted against developing those mindless nuclear “bunker buster” bombs. Joe Lieberman was for them. Those two also differed on the president’s “Fast Track” free-trade initiative. Lieberman naturally favored it; Dodd was against.

But with a few regionally explained exceptions, the entire House has grown generally more partisan over the last year. Majority Leader Tom “The Hammer” Delay may explain most of that. Republicans are voting more Republican now, and vice versa. On traditional party issues like tax cuts for the rich, welfare cuts, narrowing Medicaid benefits, union protections, and medical malpractice, the party lines in our delegation have consequently grown sharper.

But on a few issues where Connecticut voters display a very firm position, like abortion and gas mileage standards, our Republican members were allowed to vote with the Democrats. Still, one might have thought that Nutmeg sentiments against oil drilling in Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and exploitative logging would have been equally strong. They weren’t. Simmons, Shays, and Johnson voted to allow them all.

Unfortunately there’s no easy way to find out how our guys do vote on such things, and you can bet they like it that way just fine. Anyhow, the lobbyists keep track.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)