Walt Minnick’s Most Important Vote

Vaughn Ward put out a press release out on Walt Minnick’s jobs publicity blitz:

Walter Minnick claims that his main focus is on creating jobs, yet his boss Nancy Pelosi continues to hurt the economy in Idaho by pushing through a stimulus bill that hasn’t created any jobs, cap and trade legislation that raises taxes on Idahoan families, and a socialized health care plan that costs more than $1.6 trillion dollars. Instead of mortgaging our children’s and grandchildren’s futures, Congress needs to focus on creating jobs through small business, providing real tax relief for Idahoan families, and fight to keep the federal government out of our daily lives.”

In reporting on this, Betsy Russell notes on  Minnick:

Minnick, a member of the conservative “Blue Dog Democrats” in the House, actually voted against the stimulus bill, one of just 11 Democrats in the House to do so. In addition to Ward,

It doesn’t matter what Minnick votes against. Minnick can vote as conservative as he wants, or as much as he feels is necessary to win re-election. Nancy Pelosi has 40 votes to spare and the House leadership can spare his vote. ANd they don’t care because he already gave him the one thing they wanted: the organizational vote.

Walt Minnick voted for Nancy Pelosi for the high office of Speaker of the House, giving her great power to influence who charis committees and what bills make it to the floor. Walt Minnick with his organizational vote assured that Democrats will run the committees. Minnick is in favor of Charlie Rangel as Chairman of Ways and Means, the committee in charge of writing tax laws, his organizational vote is in favor of Henry Waxman heading up the energy committee. When you realize that personnel is policy, you see how left wing the resultant policy of Walt Minnick is. He could vote against his leadership on every vote, but the fact is that Minnick’s presence in Congress helps to increase the number of Democrats on key committees and decrease the Republicans. That’s why Democatic leaders in Washington don’t care how Minnick votes, all they really care about is his organizational vote, which gives them the power to craft bills and bring them to the floor. He can vote however he likes as long a s he just remembers to cast his vote for Nancy Pelosi. That’s what matters to Beltway Dems.