{"id":2106,"date":"2007-08-15T15:46:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-15T21:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/08\/just-another-example-that-washington-is-too-partisan\/"},"modified":"2007-08-15T15:46:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-15T21:46:00","slug":"just-another-example-that-washington-is-too-partisan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/08\/just-another-example-that-washington-is-too-partisan\/","title":{"rendered":"Just another example that Washington is too partisan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Need another example that Washington<\/st1:state><\/st1:place> has become too partisan? Here it is:<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Last week, U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce<\/a>, R-N.M., sent a letter to constituents using taxpayer dollars, not campaign funds, attacking \u201cliberal lawmakers\u201d and \u201cthe new congressional leadership\u201d for approval of an increase in funding for the State Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The House Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards publishes regulations<\/a> on what is appropriate and what is not appropriate in taxpayer-funded mailings from members of the House to their constituents. In reading through it, a couple of provisions caught my attention.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Members must \u201cavoid excessive use of party labels,\u201d with a general guideline of two per page for each party. In addition, \u201ccomments critical of policy or legislation should not be partisan, politicized or personalized.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Though he may not call them Democrats, Pearce, on the first-page of the two-page letter, makes references to \u201cliberal lawmakers,\u201d \u201cthe new majority in Congress\u201d and \u201cthe new congressional leadership.\u201d On the second page, he refers twice to \u201cthe majority\u201d and once to \u201cliberal advocates.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In comments that are certainly \u201ccritical of policy or legislation,\u201d I\u2019d think he\u2019s getting \u201cpersonalized\u201d when he refers to \u201cSpeaker Pelosi\u201d and partisan throughout with his complaints about the bill backed by \u201cliberal lawmakers\u201d and Democrats.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

This letter is certainly partisan and an assault on the speaker of the House and Democrats, all at the expense of taxpayers \u2013 Democrats, Republicans and others.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

So I\u2019m thinking, this must violate the rules of the commission, right? This can\u2019t be allowable.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Pearce\u2019s spokesman told me the commission approved the letter before it was mailed on Aug. 7. I was skeptical, but verified today that it had been, in fact, given the OK by the commission.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Unreal. A bipartisan commission is approving taxpayer-funded letters that are partisan attacks.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a complaint against Pearce. It\u2019s a complaint against the commission of Democrats and Republicans that allows this crap. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s allowing such partisan attacks from members of both parties.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

What should be allowed at taxpayer expense is a letter in which Pearce makes a policy argument for or against the bill \u2013 sans the partisan references and attacks. That seems to be what\u2019s intended in the regulations.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Apparently, Washington<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> has become so partisan that those charged with ensuring that taxpayer dollars aren\u2019t used for partisan attacks can\u2019t see or don\u2019t care that they\u2019re doing the opposite.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Why do citizens tolerate this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Need another example that Washington has become too partisan? Here it is: Last week, U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., sent a letter to constituents using taxpayer dollars, not campaign funds, attacking \u201cliberal lawmakers\u201d and \u201cthe new congressional leadership\u201d for approval of an increase in funding for the State Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program. The House Commission […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}