Recently in Votes Category

Randy Kuhl's vote against the Housing Bill yesterday will not become a campaign issue in the 29th. The main provision of the bill would let the FHA re-insure underwater mortgages if the mortgage holder (bank) agrees to reduce the principal to 85% of the current home value.

In other words, in return for taking a loss, the bank gets the mortgage off their books. Since the homeowner must re-qualify for the loan, this program also weeds out borrowers who can't pay the new mortgage.

The reason this bill won't be an issue in the 29th is that we don't have many underwater borrowers. Take a look at this graph:

As you can see, the 29th had a small increase in house pricing. The sunbelt states and urban growth areas, where speculation was widespread, are where the prices are falling. The 29th is also doing fairly well in mortgage delinquency:

We seem to be able to pay our mortgages in the 29th, at least when compared to boom areas.

Whether Kuhl's vote was the right thing to do is worth debating, but, politically, I don't see a downside in his decision to stick with the rest of his party and vote against the bill.

(Graphs from the Federal Reserve via the excellent Calculated Risk blog.)

If you're reading this article about Bush's threatened veto of the Housing Bill, and then you see this press release from Randy Kuhl, don't be confused. Kuhl is co-sponsoring a housing bill, but it isn't the housing bill that Bush wants to veto.

That latter bill's author, Barney Frank, believes that he'll get significant Republican support. My guess is that support won't include Rep. Kuhl, because co-sponsoring an alternative bill that has no chance of passage is usually an attempt at inoculation. Kuhl can say that he supported a better alternative, even if that alternative was introduced a short time ago and has no chance of passage.

Update: Kuhl voted against the bill in three key votes today (here, here and here).

Randy Kuhl was part of a unanimous New York delegation vote for the Medicaid Safety Net Act eariler this week. This bill extends a number of deadlines for program cuts in Medicaid. Since it passed by a veto-proof majority, and because it is under veto threat from the White House, this sets up a possible veto override vote, assuming the bill passes the Senate intact.

Project Vote Smart is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to informing voters.  They've recently updated their candidate information pages, including lists of what Vote Smart calls "key votes", which are an extremely useful resource.   Randy Kuhl's key votes are here.  Vote Smart also has a "political courage test" which records politicians' positions on key issues.  Kuhl has refused to answer those questions.

The House just passed an amendment to the Senate Amendment to the Protect America Act that strips out immunity for telecommunications providers.  Instead, the new provision allows a secure court to review evidence explaining why telecoms provided wiretaps for the government without proper authorization.

The Republicans pulled out the stops, procedural and rhetorical, to pass this bill with immunity intact.  Today, the House had a secret session for the first time in 25 years, where Republicans tried to explain why retroactive immunity is necessary.  Last month, they walked out of the chamber in protest.  Back then, Randy Kuhl posted a blog entry which warned that the expiration of the PAA would have dire consequences for the nation, yet he voted against an extension. Today, President Bush said that the PAA is needed for "our children to be safe from terror."  Bush maintains this line even after repeated audits have shown that the current surveillance powers have been consistently abused by the FBI.

The Senate could still try to strip out immunity, but it sounds like the House has come to a compromise that might work.  Of course, Kuhl voted against it, along with every other Republican in Congress, even though his position a month ago was that we are in dire peril if the PAA isn't passed.  He hasn't posted anything on his blog yet, but I'm eager to hear how this vote kept us safer.

Unsurprisingly, Randy Kuhl voted to uphold the veto.  Here's the roll call.

The Star-Gazette reports that Randy Kuhl is concerned that the Farm Bill hasn't yet gone through the conference committee process, even though the previous bill expired at the end of 2007.   Wonder what happened to that bill?  Well, if you look at the Congressdb summary,  you can see that the bill was passed by the House in July.  After the inevitable cloture vote, the Senate finally passed it in December, almost immediately before adjourning.   So, what Randy is telling us is that we should be upset that the filibuster threats in the Senate have delayed the Farm Bill.  OK, I'm upset.

The Democrat and Chronicle's story on suburban poverty notes that the number of children living in poverty in Rochester's suburbs is on the rise.  One of the school districts mentioned, Wheatland-Chili, is part of the 29th district.  Another, East Rochester, is on the very edge of the district.

Today's news that President Bush will veto the Defense Appropriation Bill is a surprise, but the illogical rhetoric accompanying it is all too familiar.  The administration objects to a provision in the bill that would allow courts to freeze Iraqi assets as part of lawsuits against Iraq.  The Iraqi government opposes this measure because it would expose them to asset freezes related to litigation over Saddam Hussein's bad acts.

Despite being one of those who supported the bill, the most senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, John Warner, said:

The president is doing the right thing [...] It's in our national security interests, and it's the right thing to try to preserve what I perceive as a strengthening of the relationship between our government and the Iraqi government.

If it was the "right thing" to do this, why didn't Warner do the "right thing" and oppose the bill in committee?  If the President is doing the "right thing", why did Randy Kuhl vote for the bill two weeks ago?

H.Con.Res 215, which was co-sponsored by Randy Kuhl and Dan Boren (D-OK-2), names the first week in June as National CPR and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Week.  It passed the House yesterday, and the Senate on December 6. 

Also, and completely unrelated, I missed the Massa press conference this morning, so no report on Massa doings this week.

Since Congress is going away for Thanksgiving, yesterday was a busy day.  Before recessing just before midnight, the House acted on the following:

• Passed the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act.  This bill is designed to address some of the issues raised by the recent subprime mortgage meltdown. It tightens up licensing requirements for mortgage brokers, restricts some mortgage types (including those with big balloon payments), and requires more due diligence on borrower repayment ability.
• Passed a new electronic surveillance bill.  This bill is an attempt to address the issues raised by the use of warrantless wiretapping.  It has provisions to restrict warrantless wiretapping to times when the nation is under a declaration of war, or when an act of Congress authorizes it.  The bill also instructs the President to turn over information about all warrantless wiretaps since 9/11.
  
• Failed to override President Bush's veto of the Labor, HHS and Education appropriation bill.

Randy Kuhl voted against the mortgage reform and wiretap reform bills, and against the veto override.  The mortgage reform bill had significant Republican support (64 votes).  The wiretap bill was essentially a party line vote.  The override vote also had a good number of Republicans supporting it (54), through Kuhl's vote against it is consistent with his original vote against the bill.