Posted on 03/23/2006 9:01:49 PM PST by Crackingham
Last week, Senator Arlen Specter declared the death of a conservative Republican Party. After the Senate approved an amendment he offered to bust the budget by $7 billion for more domestic spending, Specter rejoiced. The Pennsylvania Republican bragged to reporters, “The Republican Party is now principally moderate, if not liberal!”
Specter’s comments may be truer than many Republicans would like to admit. But conservatives in the Senate have not disappeared. There are some left, like the junior Senator from Nevada, John Ensign.
Ensign has always been a conservative. Elected to the House of Representatives as part of the fabled and historic class of 1994, he went on to serve on the House Ways and Means Committee where he embraced the principled conservatism that swept Republicans into power that year. He ran against Senator Harry Reid in 1998 and lost by only 400 hundred votes – with voting irregularities noted across the state.
When he ran for Senate again in 2000 he was elected by running on a limited government conservative platform. That platform is one that he has remained true to throughout his entire first term in the Senate by casting vote after vote in favor of limited government.
Over the course of the last five years, Ensign has cast tough votes against the bloated farm bill, the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, and against the free-speech squelching McCain-Feingold campaign legislation.
Now, as he faces his re-election race this November against former President Jimmy Carter’s well-funded son, Jack, Ensign is doing something that many of his colleagues standing for re-election are not: he is embracing his deeply held beliefs in limited government.
Indeed, of late Ensign’s embrace of these principles has been inspiring. He is not only talking the talk, he is walking the walk.
On the issue of limited government, specifically how much tax dollars the federal government spends, Ensign has been a conservative champion unafraid to stand up for his beliefs even in the face of strong opposition from his own leadership.
In February, the Senate was considering legislation on asbestos reform. The legislation had the laudable intention of fixing a system that benefited trial lawyers over victims but it sought to achieve that by creating a federal trust fund to compensate victims. The trust fund had serious flaws which would have likely resulted in its default, leaving the taxpayers on the hook for a $500 billion bill.
The Senate leadership was heavily invested in this bill and lobbied all their members hard to ensure its passage. But Ensign recognized the faults within the bill and understood that it broke the Senate-passed budget. Much to the Senate leadership’s chagrin, Ensign took the Senate floor to raise a budget point of order – a parliamentary procedure designed to uphold the budget – against the bill. Ensign explained that he recognized the problem that needed to be addressed but “with that looming problem of the baby boomers coming up, the last thing we can afford to do is to enact a bill that potentially could have a major impact--literally, maybe with a number in the hundreds of billions of dollars--that could have a drain on our government.”
For all practical purposes, the Senate SHOULD be more conservative than the House. There are far more Red states than Blue states, and you would think that this would translate to an advantage in that there are 2 Senators per state as opposed to the more population-based model in the House.
It never seems to work out that way, though.
Well he sounds great and true. But even if he were Arlen Spector I'd be sick if the son of Jimmy Carter beat him.
By the way, the Constitution provides for someone becoming president without "receiving a singular popular vote." If you hate the Constitution that's your right, but don't expect me to applaud you.
Yes, you are right the "big tent" is history. Now moderate and conservative Republicans are to be exterminated.
Yeah...Bryan would likely be another Zell Miller type nowadays. Too bad he retired and Dingy Harry stayed.
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