Friday, January 25, 2008

Holding Representatives & Senators Accountable

The editorial board of the NY Times has written an interesting piece about holding representatives and senators accountable for their voting records on judicial appointments. The article references a ad put out by People for the American Way; the features actress Kathleen Turner (a long time supporter of Planned Parenthood and a former national spokesperson for the organization) calling Maine Rep. Susan Collins to task for claiming to be pro-choice but voting for judicial appointees who are staunchly anti-choice.

In an attempt to draw the focus of The Rhetorical Situation to something other than Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I wanted to highlight this key issue. In presidential election years we tend to focus on only those candidates running for the highest office, and perhaps justifiably so. That said, the congresspersons we elect have the power to reject any presidential judicial nominees. Check out the voting records of the representatives running for office in your district; you may find that you don't like what you see and you may also find, as I imagine many Maine voters would, that your representatives didn't vote in support of the issues they promised to support.

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