Posted on 07/01/2007 2:44:50 PM PDT by Graybeard58
What do Connecticut voters have in common with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? Ample reason to be frustrated with Sen. Christopher J. Dodd. During the last week of June, Sen. Reid publicly complained that presidential candidates were missing so many votes that Senate business was being impeded. The worst offender was Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who had missed 117 of 226 recorded floor votes as of mid-June.
Among Democrats, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware was the worst offender, missing 62 votes. Right after Sen. Biden on the dishonor roll was Sen. Dodd with 59 no-shows. If opinion surveys in early primary and caucus states are any indication, Sen. Dodd has missed more roll calls in the Senate than he might receive in votes.
Two factors seem to be fueling Sen. Dodd's increasingly silly run for the presidency: boredom and extortion. Sen. Dodd is chairman of the Senate's Banking Committee, and his campaign has been awash with contributions from the industry he purports to regulate. He is in a position to do lasting harm to banks and to bankers, and the hefty checks to his presidential campaign reek of protection money.
In case Sen. Dodd has been too distracted to notice, the banking industry is in the midst of its worst crisis since the savings-and-loan collapse of the 1980s. Major sub-prime lenders have been going under, to the growing alarm of the Federal Reserve Board. The Fed has been caught between a rapidly weakening housing market and an urgent need to tighten dubious practices that have put banks on the hook for billions of dollars to borrowers whose credit histories suggest they never should have been granted big mortgages. In some high-growth parts of the country, the cushion of equity between housing values and loan amounts has all but evaporated.
In many ways, the housing industry led the economy out of the post-9/11 slump, and over the last few years, much of that growth was sustained by a variety of exotic loan packages whose rates are due to adjust drastically higher starting in 2008. Many in the housing and real-estate business fear a flood of abandonments and foreclosures if prices stay low and lending rates stay high.
Having been given a lead role in averting this impending crisis, Sen. Dodd instead has been off on jaunts and junkets for his presidential campaign. After all, it's much more fun to flit about collecting large checks than listening to testimony about the banking industry's troubles.
Sen. Dodd and his committee need to take a hard look at the sub-prime lending mess and its potential impact on the banking industry and the U.S. economy. When his committee begins that work, its leader cannot bear the taint of a potential conflict of interest.
The only way Sen. Dodd can be counted on to look at the issue fairly and honestly is if he immediately refunds all contributions to his presidential campaign from the industry he purports to help regulate.
Of course, if he gives that money back, he won't have any sort of campaign left, and the last thing Sen. Dodd seems eager to do is return to his job in the Senate. After 26 years in that chamber, he apparently would much rather kick back and have some fun.
And who can blame him? Telling people what needs to be done is always easier than trying to do it.
When hell freezes over.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
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Personally, I don’t have a problem with Biden, McCain & Dodd missing votes.
Neither do I but I have a problem with Dodd accepting donations from the banking industry when he is the chairman of the senate banking committee.
Good article. It would be interesting to see a list of all ‘Presidential Hopefuls’ and the missed votes. But I see something more here. If McCain missed 117 and Biden only 62 as the worst offenders ... what is this Republican doing? Almost double the Democrat. Something else is rotten here!
Apparently it was not worth mentioning the number of votes missed by Beast and Ears. But then what is there to expect from another one of those anonymous editorials.
John Kerry was absent for every vote during 76 of the 115 days when the Senate cast floor votes in 2003. His longest streak of missed votes in 2003 ran from July 11 to September 9, when he missed 62 in a row. For 2004, Kerry was absent for every vote during the months of July, September, and October – and compiled a total of 76 consecutive votes missed from June 23 through October 11. Kerry’s absences for 2004 total 70 days.
You're right...That would be no different than murtha (chairman defense appropriations committee) returning defense contractor donations, his number one donors. It ain't gonna happen.
anyone who runs for president should have to resign any elected position as soon as he/she announces.
same for governors and atate assemblies or agencies.
The entitled citizens in the blue states have elected senators for decades that have a grand sense of entitlement and have milked it for all its worth.
I don't know why it wasn't mentioned unless it was significantly lower than those that were mentioned. This editorial is from one of the most conservative newspapers in the country, they don't give any liberals a "free pass" intentionally.
Isn't Bob Dole the only one who has in recent times?
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