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By James Beaty
Senior Editor
U.S. District 2 Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, joined Republicans and a handful of other Democrats in voting against an attempt to override President George W. Bush’s veto of legislation setting timetables for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq.
The House voted 222-203 to override Bush’s veto — 62 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed.
Boren had previously voted against Bush’s plan for a troop surge in Iraq — but he had also later voted against the original Democratic war funding bill which set the timetables for troop withdrawals from the war-torn nation.
Referring to his vote on Wednesday against overriding the veto, Boren said “This doesn’t mean I support what the president’s doing.
“We can’t micromanage the war from Congress,” Boren said. Read more…
Among Oklahoma’s congressional delegation, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe was judged the most conservative, and U.S. Rep. Dan Boren the most liberal. However Boren, the state’s lone Democratic representative, was ranked the most conservative Democratic member of the House of Representatives (with a slightly higher composite conservative score than liberal score). Boren’s voting record also rated more conservative than 11 GOP members for 2006.
In the U.S. Senate, Jim Inhofe was ranked eighth most conservative, with a composite conservative score of 89.3. Tom Coburn was ranked eighteenth most conservative, with a composite conservative score of 78.8. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was ranked the senate’s most liberal member, with a composite conservative score of 4.8. Durbin was followed closely by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who garnered a composite conservative score of 5.
Among Oklahoma’s House members, Tulsa Congressman John Sullivan was ranked the state’s most conservative congressman and 27th most conservative member of the House, with a composite conservative score of 87.7. As for the rest of the Oklahoma House delegation, here’s how they lined up, from conservative to liberal: Sullivan, Ernest Istook (38th most conservative, composite conservative score of 86.3); Frank Lucas (42nd most conservative, composite conservative score of 85.3), Tom Cole (96th most conservative, composite conservative score of 78.7); and Dan Boren (219th most conservative, composite conservative score of 50.8).
The rankings are based on 103 House votes and 82 Senate votes in 2006, on economic, social and foreign policy. The composite conservative score means that the member voted more conservative than that percentage of his or her colleagues. A score of 85 on the conservative scale, for example, means that the senator was more conservative than 85% of his or her Senate colleagues on key votes during 2006.
For a full breakdown of the 2006 ratings and an analysis of the votes used as criteria, please click here.
From the “Down With Tyranny” Blog:
Yesterday Dem4evr posted a diary at Daily Kos about Oklahoma Congressman Dan Boren, appealing to progressives to mount a primary against the reactionary Democratic rep, Oklahoma’s last.
A quick blog search shows me that DWT has over a dozen mentions of Boren, although no stories on him. All the mentions concern his status as one of the 2 or 3 most reactionary Democrats in the House, someone as likely to vote with Republicans on substantive matters as with Democrats. The latest on DWT– and the cause of Dem4evr’s diary– concerned how Boren was only one of two Democrats, along with Mississippi Republicrat Gene Taylor, to vote against a worker’s right to join a union last week, a position so inherently un-American and vile that even 13 Republicans joined the House Democrats to beat back the Republican opposition.
As Dem4evr points out, there may be virtually no difference between the way Taylor and Boren come down on the issues– they are, respectively, the #1 and #2 most reactionary Democrats in the House– but that there is a significant difference in the nature of the districts that the two men represent. Taylor has been elected in a solid Republican seat. MS-04 has a +16 Republican rating on the Cook Partisan Voting Index. Taylor’s constituents, while returning him to office with massive majorities (75% in 2002, 64% in 2004, 80% in 2006), gave Bush 65% in 2000 and then liked what they saw so much that they gave him 68% in 2004.
Boren’s district (OK-02), the poor, mostly rural eastern third of Oklahoma (including Muskogee), is a traditional Democratic district that has been trending Republican in national elections. It is considered a competitive district that leans Republican, although Brad Henry carried every single county in the district when he ran for governor in 2002 and two years later Brad Carson carried every county in the district except two when he ran for Senate. Gore and Kerry did better in OK-02 than in any of Oklahoma’s other congressional districts, with Bush getting 52% in 2000 and 59% in 2004. Boren was first elected in 2004 with 66% of the vote and in November he was re-elected with 73% against Republican wingnut Patrick Miller. Read more…
From the “Down With Tyranny” Blog:
Yesterday Dem4evr posted a diary at Daily Kos about Oklahoma Congressman Dan Boren, appealing to progressives to mount a primary against the reactionary Democratic rep, Oklahoma’s last.
A quick blog search shows me that DWT has over a dozen mentions of Boren, although no stories on him. All the mentions concern his status as one of the 2 or 3 most reactionary Democrats in the House, someone as likely to vote with Republicans on substantive matters as with Democrats. The latest on DWT– and the cause of Dem4evr’s diary– concerned how Boren was only one of two Democrats, along with Mississippi Republicrat Gene Taylor, to vote against a worker’s right to join a union last week, a position so inherently un-American and vile that even 13 Republicans joined the House Democrats to beat back the Republican opposition.
As Dem4evr points out, there may be virtually no difference between the way Taylor and Boren come down on the issues– they are, respectively, the #1 and #2 most reactionary Democrats in the House– but that there is a significant difference in the nature of the districts that the two men represent. Taylor has been elected in a solid Republican seat. MS-04 has a +16 Republican rating on the Cook Partisan Voting Index. Taylor’s constituents, while returning him to office with massive majorities (75% in 2002, 64% in 2004, 80% in 2006), gave Bush 65% in 2000 and then liked what they saw so much that they gave him 68% in 2004.
Boren’s district (OK-02), the poor, mostly rural eastern third of Oklahoma (including Muskogee), is a traditional Democratic district that has been trending Republican in national elections. It is considered a competitive district that leans Republican, although Brad Henry carried every single county in the district when he ran for governor in 2002 and two years later Brad Carson carried every county in the district except two when he ran for Senate. Gore and Kerry did better in OK-02 than in any of Oklahoma’s other congressional districts, with Bush getting 52% in 2000 and 59% in 2004. Boren was first elected in 2004 with 66% of the vote and in November he was re-elected with 73% against Republican wingnut Patrick Miller. Read more…