MINNICK: Record shows what he is

I have read many letters from passionate Republicans who believe leaving Representative Walt Minnick in Congress will, as Post Falls' John Cross puts it, "help Nancy Pelosi for the following two years." I don't think so. I'm a Democrat, but I'm not sure Walt Minnick is.

According to Open Congress, our Tea Party-endorsed representative (the only Tea Party-approved Democrat in Congress!) votes with the Democrats only 65 percent of the time. That's an F. Mr. Minnick earned his F by voting no on HR 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; HR 31, the Lumbee Recognition Act; HR 626, the Federal Employees Paid Paternal Leave Act; HR 911, the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs Act; HR 1018, the Restore Our American Mustangs Act; HR 1299, the Capitol Police Administrative Technical Corrections Act, which passed on a 416-1 vote; HR 1575, the End Government Reimbursement of Excessive Executive Disbursements Act; HR 1586, the To impose an additional tax on bonuses received from certain TARP recipients Act; HR 1664, the Pay for Performance Act; HR 1886, the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act; HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act; HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act; the December 2009 Affordable Health Care for America Act and the March 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (The last one is the infamous "Obamacare" bill, which no rank-and-file Democrat likes.) Go through that list carefully, my Republican friends: that's an itemized list of the Democratic agenda, and Walt Minnick voted against it all. He also voted against the speakership of Nancy Pelosi.

He's very consistent in his votes against agency and department appropriations and he's a fearless fighter of pork-barrel spending, which earned him a perfect score on the Club for Growth's RePork Scorecard. A recent review of Congressmen's voting records reveals Walt Minnick is the most conservative House member from the Northwest--more conservative than any Northwest Republican. That long laundry list of Minnick nays? Representative Simpson, Eastern Idaho's congressman and a Republican, voted Yea on three of them, the Lumbee Recognition Act, Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs Act and the Capitol Police act everyone except Walt Minnick voted for.

Walt Minnick's campaign slogan is "Right for Idaho," and he's not kidding: he's about as far to the right as you can get. Forget the (D) behind Walt Minnick's name, and think: do you really want to vote for someone who's more liberal than what you already have?

JIM MOWREADER

Hayden