Thursday, December 11, 2014

Welcome to the Next 2 Years: 57 Dems Vote to Give Wall Street a Cromnibus Christmas Present

Just now, the House passed the "CRomnibus"--part continuing resolution, part omnibus bill, part Pentagon slush fund, part austerity, and part rollback of the regulatory state.

Although they are far from the only toxic pieces of the deal (You can--and should--read a review of its parts here), negotiated by Democratic and Republican appropriators, the two pieces that have faced the most criticism from Democrats have been the part gutting campaign finance laws and the part promising to bail out the banks when they lose money from risky trades (a part that was, in fact, written almost entirely by Citigroup).

Although Nancy Pelosi has rhetorically opposed the deal and did vote NO on it, she did not whip against it. Some progressive Democrats, led by Maxine Waters, were whipping against it. But they had to face the opposing whipping team of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and their good friend Jamie Dimon.

Ultimately, Democrats, as one could--unfortunately--expect, provided the votes needed to pass the bill. The final vote was 219 to 206. 162 Republicans and 57 Democrats voted for it. 139 Democrats and 67 Republicans voted against it.

Here are the 57 Democrats who just sold you to to Wall Street:

Ron Barber (AZ-02)
John Barrow (GA-12)
Ami Bera (CA-07)
Sanford Bishop (GA-02)
Timothy Bishop (NY-01)
Bob Brady (PA-01)
Julia Brownley (CA-26)
Cheri Bustos (IL-17)
John Carney (DE-AL)
Lacy Clay (MO-01)
Jim Clyburn (SC-06)
Gerry Connolly (VA-11)
Jim Costa (CA-16)
Joe Crowley (NY-14)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Susan Davis (CA-53)
John Delaney (MD-06)
John Dingell (MI-12)
Sam Farr (CA-20)
Chaka Fattah (PA-02)
Bill Foster (IL-11)
Pete Gallego (TX-23)
John Garamendi (CA-03)
Jim Himes (CT-04)
Steven Horsford (NV-04)
Steny Hoyer (MD-05)
Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
Ron Kind (WI-03)
Annie Kuster (NH-02)
Daniel Lipinski (IL-03)
Nita Lowey (NY-17)
Dan Maffei (NY-24)
Sean Maloney (NY-18)
Jim Matheson (UT-02)
Carolyn McCarthy (NY-04)
Gregory Meeks (NY-05)
George Miller (CA-11)
Jim Moran (VA-08)
Patrick Murphy (FL-18)
Donald Norcross (NJ-01)
Bill Owens (NY-21)
Ed Pastor (AZ-07)
Ed Perlmutter (CO-07)
Scott Peters (CA-52)
Gary Peters (MI-14)
David Price (NC-04)
Mike Quigley (IL-05)
Cedric Richmond (LA-02)
Raul Ruiz (CA-36)
Dutch Ruppersberger (MD-02)
Brad Schneider (IL-10)
Allyson Schwartz (PA-13)
David Scott (GA-13)
Terri Sewell (AL-07)
Brad Sherman (CA-30)
Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23)

Henry Waxman (CA-33) apparently voted for it and then changed his vote at the last minute when it was no longer "needed."

Note that Steny Hoyer, Pelosi's #2, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC chairwoman, are both on the list.

Yesterday, a Republican Senate aide told The Hill, "If liberal Democrats vote for this package it shows that conservatives can use must-pass legislation to repeal the regulatory state." Granted, many of these Democrats are not "liberals." But the vote nevertheless shows that Republicans will be able to roll back various parts of the regulatory state (financial, environmental, labor, etc.) over the next two years by shoving such provisions into "must-pass" bills that Obama will sign and lobby Democrats to pass.

Welcome to the next two years.

[Post-Script: The bill title is "An Act to require the Secretary of the Interior to assemble a team of experts to address the energy needs of the insular areas of the United States and Freely Associated States through the development of energy action plans aimed at promoting access to energy." They simply attached the $1.3 trillion appropriations bill as an amendment to a random bill the Senate already passed. Because Congress.]

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