Dina Titus (D-NV) casts a vote that earns my respect.
From an article in the WSJ:
A group of Democrats elected in recent years from some of the country’s richest congressional districts have emerged as a stumbling block to raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for President Barack Obama’s ambitious health-care overhaul just as the plan has begun to meet increasing resistance over its cost.
Friday, two freshmen representatives — Dina Titus, from suburban Las Vegas, and Colorado’s Jared Polis, representing Boulder, Vail and some of the tonier suburbs of Denver — joined Republicans to vote against Mr. Obama’s top-priority health-care overhaul when it faced a vote in their House Education and Labor Committee. One reason was a one-percentage point-surtax on couples earning between $350,000 and $500,000 — gradually increasing to 5.4 percentage points on earnings more than $1 million — to pay for it.
20 July 2009
Not so fast there, E!. She did the right thing but it may be all political. She’s trying to re-invent herself because her district is still fairly conservative and Obama won’t have any coattails next time around. (She recently sent out a mailer touting her efforts as a tax-cutter.)
This is just the kind of vote that is fairly meaningless. Even with her voting against it the bill still made it through committee. So she gets the benefit of appearing fiscally conservative but without her vote actually having any impact on the outcome. So I’ll need a little more substance before I’ll give her too much credit.