I think the fact that only 40% of the Republicans voted against the Flake amendments shows how bad the situation is. I do understand the point about wasting time, but back in the ‘94 Congress, despite getting the Contract points voted on, there were issues that could have been addressed that never made it out of committee - the wool/mohair subsidies, the atom spliter in Texas, PBS/NPR, National Endowment for the Arts, doing away with the Energy and Education Departments, and a whole lot of others programs that with the majority we had at the time could have been done away with.
Now you probably would be right to say that even _with_ those majorities, we still wouldn’t have gotten rid of those programs so bringing them up would have been a waste of time. I disagree, I think that showing _who_, in our ranks, supports those programs is important information and not a waste of time.
We may have been able to handle the ‘weeding’ then better than we can now, and Specter would either have been a Democrat or retired for over a decade, as well as McCain and some others.
It is only an indication if you assume that these were good amendments. In my opinion, they weren't. See my prior post above. And that really isn't my point anyway. I object to the results being used as the sole basis for labeling a congressmember a big spender.