Upper Midwest House Members Vote Along Party Lines On Iraq Withdrawal

On Thursday the U.S. House voted 223-201 to require the Secretary of Defense to commence the reduction of the number of United States Armed Forces in Iraq to a limited presence by April 1, 2008.

The Upper Midwestern delegation voted strictly along party lines: Democratic Representatives Oberstar, Walz, Peterson, Ellison, and McCollum from Minnesota, Braley, Loebsack, and Boswell from Iowa, Baldwin, Kind, Moore, Obey, and Kagen from Wisconsin, and Herseth from South Dakota all supported the Democratic-sponsored legislation. Republican Representatives King and Latham from Iowa, Ramstad, Bachmann, and Kline from Minnesota, and Ryan, Sensenbrenner, and Petri from Wisconsin voted against the bill.

Back in February 2007, two of these Republicans (MN's Jim Ramstad and WI's Tom Petri) voted with the Democrats for a resolution disapproving of the decision of the President announced on January 10, 2007 to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

Only four House Republicans voted against their party leadership on Thursday:

Jimmy Duncan (TN-02)
Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08)
Wayne Gilchrest (MD-01)
Walter Jones (NC-03).

None of these legislators faced close elections in 2006—winning with 72, 78, 69, and 69 percent of the vote respectively. Ten Democrats voted with the GOP:

John Barrow (GA-12)
Dan Boren (OK-02)
Brad Ellsworth (IN-08)
Christopher Carney (PA-10)
Tim Holden (PA-17)
Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
Jim Marshall (GA-08)
Jim Matheson (UT-02)
Vic Snyder (AR-02)
Gene Taylor (MS-04)

Marshall and Taylor also voted against their party leadership in February's nonbinding resolution on the President's troop escalation plan.

Leave a comment

Name

Email Address

URL

Remember personal info?

Comments (You may use HTML tags for style)

Curse of the '4'?

May 22, 2013

Big-name Republicans are not coming out of the woodwork yet to challenge Al Franken in Minnesota's 2014 U.S. Senate race, and there is not much chatter of the GOP picking off one of the five DFL-held U.S. House seats either. Over the last century, Minnesota Republican U.S. House candidates have not fared all that well in cycles ending in '4' - losing seats in four of these cycles (1914, 1924, 1944, 1974), holding serve in four others (1964, 1984, 1994, 2004), and gaining seats just one time (1934, after redistricting had been delayed one cycle with all nine seats voted at-large in 1932). Perhaps the Republican Party's best chance for a pick up in the Gopher State in 2014 is if 12-term Democrat Collin Peterson retires after nearly a quarter century on Capitol Hill. The 7th CD has the second largest GOP lean in the state.

Seasoned Senators in Wisconsin

May 2, 2013

Of the 15 men and women that have served in the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin since popular vote elections were introduced a century ago, Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin rank among the oldest upon first entering the chamber. Johnson began his tenure at the age of 55 years, 8 months, and 26 days in January 2011, which is the oldest of any elected Wisconsin Senator during this popular vote era. The next oldest, Alexander Wiley, was more than one year younger when he took his seat in 1939 (54 years, 7 months, 8 days). Tammy Baldwin comes in at #6 being 50 years, 10 months, and 23 days when she took office in January of this year. The youngest elected Senator from the Badger State was Robert La Follette, Jr. at 30 years, 7 months, and 24 days (1925) when he took the seat of his legendary deceased father.