vibinc

Bush Dog – Mike Ross AR-04 (Revised and Extended)

Note: This is an updated version of an earlier post. This post is in response to, and support of the “Bush Dog” project at Open Left. This, like all the other profiles, is a work in progress. If you have any insight or information to add to this profile, please do so in the comments.

Mike Ross is a conservative Democrat from south Arkansas. Elected to his first term in 2000, Ross narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Jay Dickey by 4000 votes. Dickey challenged again in 2002 and only received 40% of the vote. In 2004 Ross ran unopposed and 2006 Ross received over 74% of the vote.

Ross is a member of the Blue Dogs. He votes with the Democratic party 91.4% of the time. Ross has a PPI of 72.79. He is a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Science and Technology.

Ross’ voting record is a mixed bag. He has consistently voted against choice, gun control, and civil liberties. On the other hand, he receives high marks for supporting Unions, public health, and fair (not free) trade. He voted to make the PATRIOT Act permanent, to ban flag burning, and to protect the Pledge of Allegiance.

AR-04 is a large rural district in south Arkansas. 26 of the state’s 75 counties comprise the District. Median household income as of 2004 was $30547, the poverty level in the district is near 18%. AR-04 is a geographically diverse area. Much of the eastern part of the district is farmland, while the northwest portion of the district gets into the southernmost part of the Ozarks. South Arkansas is very rural. The west end of the district trends Republican, and generally has a greater overall population density than the east.

In 2004 Bush carried AR-04 by less than 4200 votes with 227,210 cast for the two main candidates (51% to 49%). AR-04 has a Cook rating of D+.5

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Comments

  1. politico

    Most of the “Bush Dog” Democrats in Arkansas have 90 plus percentages for voting with the Democrats. What are you complaining about?

    Reply
  2. vibinc

    Politico,

    I make no claims or assumptions or anything about this Congressman, or any other, aside from their record. If making someone’s record public is complaining, then I’ll add that definition to my dictionary in the margins.

    Secondly, while he may vote with the party consistently on softball issues, on key votes he has voted against the party 11 times out of 28 votes (39% of the time) since 1/1/05.

    Third, as you are probably not a frequent reader, you probably missed my post on My Thoughts on the Bush Dog Campaign. In it, I talk about praising Democrats when they do the right thing, to establish a dialogue to keep them from folding under administration pressure, and that we need to be targeting Republicans first, and Democrats only when they are real idiots. I offer no determination about Ross’ idiocy or lack thereof anywhere in anything I have written.

    Finally, as either a member of the faculty or student body at ASU in Jonesboro, you don’t live in AR-04. You live in AR-01. Your representative, Marion Berry had the spine to vote against the FISA bill, which was one of the votes that brought this whole thing on. As you may or may not know, Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell retracted his claim that helped get the the temporary FISA destruction of civil liberties passed.

    So it was a vote for a lie, but some of us knew this before the vote. One would think that the likes of Mike Ross and Vic Snyder would be able to see through such a transparent ploy. Apparently not.

    Which brings us back to the profile. Democrats have to be Democrats and vote with Democrats on issues like protecting civil liberties and looking out for the best interests of their constituents. The administration has had the tools to combat politically motivated attacks on the US since before 9/11. Remember that PDB from August of 01 “Bin Laden Determined to strike in US”? Unfortunately, they have chosen to ignore these tools, arguing for more tools that ultimately diminish our civil liberties, liberties that we have fought hard to keep for 200 years. Liberties that were hard to get in the first place and will be harder to get back once they are gone.

    So if I am tacitly complaining, that’s what I’m complaining about…congresscritters not doing their job of both protecting their constituents against a power hungry administration, and protecting the liberties that make this nation great.

    Thanks for the comment, Go Indians! (or whatever they’re called now).

    Reply

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