Liberal in the Land of Conservative

Your turn: Bachmann chooses Bush over her constituents
By Brian Melendez Minnesota DFL Party

Published: November 24. 2007 12:30AM - Last updated: November 24. 2007 12:47AM

By now, it's a story we're all too familiar with: U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann consistently stands by President Bush at the expense of her own constituents. We've come to expect this kind of bad judgment from Bachmann. But we deserve more from her than hypocrisy.

On Nov. 14, Bachmann once again put Bush and the Republican Party first when she voted against a bill that included the $195 million for rebuilding the Interstate Highway 35W bridge that the federal government has promised to Minnesota.

The bill, H.R. 3074, was a compromise between the House and Senate for funding the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Minnesota taxpayers have been waiting for this money for months. But Bachmann voted no.

With the same vote, Bachmann also opposed the $55 million needed to finally get Northstar commuter rail under way. The people who drive Interstate 94 every day to work have been waiting to get this project started for years. But Bachmann voted no.

This vote against Minnesota comes as no surprise because we've seen it before. Whether in opposing the renewal of the State Children's Health Insurance Program or in constantly offering Bush a blank check for his failed strategy in Iraq, we've learned we can't count on Bachmann to put Minnesota first.

If these were votes of principle — even if the principle amounts to bad judgment — it might make them easier to understand. But it turns out that these are votes of hypocrisy. And we deserve more.

Bachmann said she voted against the bill with the Northstar and I-35W bridge funding because it contained, in her words, "excessive, pork-barrel spending." This explanation might make sense if she hadn't sponsored "earmarks" of her own in the very same bill. ("Earmarks" are personal requests from members of Congress to fund specific programs in their districts.)

In the transportation bill Bachmann voted against, files from the House Committee on Rules show she sponsored two earmarks: an $820,000 earmark for buses in St. Cloud and a $500,000 earmark for improving Minnesota Highway 241 in St. Michael.

Bachmann must have believed these projects were worthy because she sponsored the earmarks for them. So why did she turn around and vote against her own earmarks?

It looks like an effort to fool her constituents into thinking that she's working for them, while she's really just trying to keep Bush happy. It's giving with one hand, but taking away with the other. And it isn't even the first time this month that she's tried to pull a fast one.

On Nov. 6 and 8, she voted against another bill — H.R. 3043, a House/Senate compromise for funding the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services — that contained three earmarks she sponsored, including $350,000 to help Northland Medical Center in Princeton buy equipment.

After Bush vetoed that bill, she voted Nov. 15 to uphold his veto, once again voting against aid for her district that she requested. But at least she was keeping her promise to Bush.

On June 13, the right-wing Republican Study Committee announced that Bachmann had signed a letter to the president pledging that she would support his veto of any spending bill that he said was too expensive, no matter what was in it — even help for Minnesota, even help for her own constituents.

So let's try to get this straight: Bachmann had the chance to vote to rebuild the bridge and get Northstar started, but didn't because she said the bill was too expensive — even though she added to the cost of the bill by sponsoring earmarks in it for her district.

And she voted twice against another bill that she put earmarks in, then supported Bush's veto of her own earmarks — because she put a hasty promise to him ahead of her duty to her district.

Bachmann has never seemed to get that Minnesotans elected her to represent them, not George Bush. Bad judgment is one thing. But hypocritically trying to pull a fast one on us is just too much.

This is the opinion of Brian Melendez, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.