thanks Jeff. Look--I'm a news stringer!

Another part of any comments you make, should involve the $5K Walden received from DeLay's PAC this last cycle. It might be nice to ask him if he plans to return it, should DeLay be convicted.

Wait a minute, Greg stepped out of the room just as they were going to take a controversial vote? Seriously, this is straddle-the-fences time.

If it becomes an issue in his likely campaign for Governor, he'll likely say flatly, "I didn't vote for the DeLay Rule..."

But we now know that's bogus. Good work, BlueBloggers.

It is incredibly cool that Joe tracked this down--when apparently, the mainstream press snoozed. It represents a kind of accountability we used to want the press demand from our leaders. Now we can demand it ourselves.

As for the Walden staff--you'd think that haven been given a long weekend to figure out how to handle the vote, they would have come up with something better than the answer they gave Joe. I mean, at least try for plausible. This having stepped out to 'speak to some Oregonians'" business rings so false.

The mainstream press indeed did snooze. I began passing this information on to Jeff Mapes at the Oregonian early Friday. To his credit, he was responsive and appeared interested in the story--and said he would pass the info on to the DC politics bureau person. When I emailed today, Mapes said he didn't know what the guy had done with the info. I also sent email tips to most of the papers in his district, with nary a reply (except for one woman who said she had no idea what I was even talking about). :rolleyes:

However, as to his having "stepped out"--ordinarily I'd be suspicious, but it appears from other members' comments that an unannounced vote was indeed taken, and it's not inconceivable that several were out of the room at the time. In fact, since Walden is a relatively moderate Republican, it's possible that it was taken BECAUSE he (and others) were out of the room.

oh, and thanks for the kudos Jeff--if you want to praise something, praise free national calling minutes in most cell phone plans these days. :)

Actually, reporters write these kinds of stories all the time. I'd argue that they should write more of them, not fewer. When a politician acts in an official capacity as a representative of Oregonians, we have a right to know. If that politician isn't going to be forthcoming, we can run with a story that says he's not forthcoming.

What we've posted here is factual and transparent--we know only what they're saying. That in itself is a story. If the Walden people were functioning as responsible representatives of the public interest, none of this would be a topic of discussion. But they're dissembling, and we're just chronicling that.

I would absolutely LOVE an official response from Greg Walden. Why do you think it is that he refuses to give one?

I certainly agree that a more fully explicative answer to the situation surrounding his non-vote and his position on the issue regardless, is required. A simple confirmation of my conversation would be swell. However, let me be clear on what was said: she offered that while he did not vote, he felt that DeLay should not be treated as if he were guilty based simply on an indictment. When I reframed it as a matter of relaxing standards that once had been set when the other party was in power, she wouldn't sign on to that perspective. But as a result, I reframed again and asked very explicitly whether his vote would have been yea or nay. She said, in a one word answer, "yea."

I certainly understand the hunger for more information surrounding my conversation, and I appreciate that I was not being criticized by allehseya's post--but the response of the staffer was unambiguous: he would have voted for the change. I feel entirely comfortable telling interested parties to draft commentary to the Representative, based on the presumption of a yea vote.

Wait a minute, Greg stepped out of the room just as they were going to take a controversial vote? Seriously, this is straddle-the-fences time.

For what it's worth, if anyone's been following the DeLay Rule story on Talking Points Memo, a fair number of Repubs walked out just before the vote on the rule. It's fairly evident at this point that it was a deliberate strategy many of them used.

b!x, much as I may want to agree with that, I can't. I have followed the story at TPM closely, and I don't know that you can make any definitive statements about what happened.

They could have

a) legitimately missed the vote by accident b) walked out c) missed the vote, but by design from leadership d) not missed it, but CLAIM they did, since it's an unrecorded vote

which is why whether they were there or not, isn't the issue. It's their position on the rule.

which is why whether they were there or not, isn't the issue. It's their position on the rule

Both are relevant, because an intentional walk may be an indication of someone who supported the rule but didn't want to be backed into a corner to take public responsibility for that position.

And the sheer numbers of people who left the room -- I just don't see how it's some sort of random coincidence. These are politicians and I certainly have the right to be skeptical of their actions.

Valerie is a staffer working for the Congressman, I presume. For what it's worth, she offered no qualifications on her statement, to the effect of "this is how I think/assume he might have voted," or "I don't know for sure, but...". I asked would he have voted yea or nay, and she said simply, yea.

In any case, one would suspect that if folks do in fact use my report in order to address Rep Walden with it, surely they will either get a denial or an implicit confirmation of that fact. But again, I have no problem at all with anyone presuming that Walden would indeed have voted for it.

OK, here: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/staff/?id=493

Valerie Henry is an official member of his staff, handling legislative assistant duties in the health, education and taxation areas.

'When Republicans had a chance to stand up for their law-abiding constituents and face their leadership over whether an indicted Congressman should continue to perform his duties, __ walked out of the room.

Demand accountability from your elected representatives in Congress - call 1-800-###-####'

I'd love to know what Gordon Smith was doing when the Ernest Istook Tax Privacy Violation Act of 2004 was brought to the floor, but that's for a different thread, I guess...

If we are going to start collecting tidbits of information on Rep. Walden for letters to the editor or for use by his opponent in 2006, look no further than last week's spending bill.

and

I'd love to know what Gordon Smith was doing when the Ernest Istook Tax Privacy Violation Act of 2004 was brought to the floor, but that's for a different thread, I guess...

Voting yea along with the rest of the Oregon contingent sans Blumenauer who did not vote. If we're going to call Walden and Smith to the carpet on that one, we have to call Hooley, Wu, DeFazio and Wyden as well. What irks me more about those was not that they voted for something that they didn't know they were voting for (for the love of God, doesn't anyone read these things first?), but that they did know there was anti-abortion language in the bill and voted for it anyway. Thanks for standing up for choice, guys.

The republican gold standard in electoral campaigns is that it is fair game to attack an incumbernt for anything that was in an omnibus spending bill he voted for, regardless of the fact that he was actually for or against that specific part or if the party making the attack was in favor or against.....I don't see why republicans should not be held to their own flawed standard.

Um, because two wrongs, last time I checked, didn't make a right? Regardless of which Republicans voted for the bill, all of our Ds that voted, voted for it as well. As for the tax language, somebody had to have written it and ultimately Istook will have to take the hit because it was his committee that was responsible.

I'm really irked about the anti-choice language, though. Yes, they included a provision to rewrite the language by spring, but I don't have faith that that's going to happen.

As for omnibus spending bills that are in excess of 3000 friggin' pages that include $350,000 to protect sunflowers from blackbirds in North Dakota (we got fields and fields of those things here... don't they just grow back?) that nobody bothers to read until AFTER they have voted to pass the damned thing - that's a problem. If everyone was held accountable before a vote, they could officially be held accountable after a vote. Nobody could point fingers and say they didn't know something was in there. It's like in Fahrenheit 9/11 when Moore asked Congressmen if they had read The Patriot Act. But I have no idea how to fix that problem without bogging down the system even more.

We're off track here, sorry - let's go back to pointing a finger at Greg Walden for the ethics rule. ;-)

I guess Barbara Boxer managed to wrangle a concession out of Frist to the effect that the Senate would hold the Omnibus until the Senate reconvened in April.

As for "doesn't anybody read these things?", it's 3000 pages - in comparison, My Life by Bill Clinton is maybe just over a third that long - and I still haven't gotten all the way through it yet. Given that Senators got -maybe- 3 hours to review it this go-round, that's a lot of people taking sections of it to read at a minimum; forget about one Senator or staffer reading it all the way through.

However, the House of Reps is not exempt from an explanation of their Yes votes. I'm going to be asking my Congressperson, Rep. Hooley, about the anti-choice provision and the tax-records provision in particular. I'll leave it to other constituents who want to have an explanation from Wu and DeFazio.

I completely understand that it is impossible for one person or one person's staff (or army) to read a 3000 page omnibus bill in a day or even a week. I get that. And I think it's awesome that Brian Baird is introducing that legislation - I hadn't read that (I also thought it was awesome of him to abstain from voting on the bill). But they KNEW the anti-choice language was in there. That's where my problem is with that particular vote.

It'll be interesting to see how Baird's legislation unfolds. All of the pork that gets through is disgusting. I mean, there's a provision for the President to get his yacht back (like he needs more reason to vacation) at a price of just over 1/5th it's assessed value. The current owners are irked, to say the least and why, why, WHY is that so friggin' important? Don't we have better things to be spending our tax dollars on? Like I dunno, funding education and positive, effective Medicare reform. I'm just sayin'...

There are so many problems with gigantic, last minute omnibus, bills - sounds like Baird found a good place to start.