Big Sky Cairn

I’ve commented on this before - the inacurate portrayal of voting records by Montana Democrats in an attempt to tie Congressman Denny Rehberg to President George W. Bush.

The Gazette has made this point (again).

U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., is getting political flak this election year over his voting record, criticized by Democrats as a yes man for President Bush and Republican policies in general.

A look at 16 key U.S. House votes in 2007 shows Rehberg siding with the president and fellow Republicans on two-thirds of those votes - and generally against them on the other third.

And this…

Rehberg said criticizing him as a Bush yes man appears to be a national “cookie-cutter campaign” drawn up by Democratic strategists in Washington, D.C., and recommended to Democratic challengers nationwide.

“He’s trying to fool Montana voters, and they’re not going to be fooled,” Rehberg said of Hunt. “These kind of charges just don’t work.”

Read the whole article.

Hello, I pointed this out on Carol’s site and will do so here.

The Lee Bureau reporter takes a pretty narrow look at Rehberg’s voting record in 2007. The article states that the reporter only looked at “16 key House votes in 2007.” That’s somewhat irrelevant from my perspective since it was cherry-picked by someone. Which votes did the reporter choose to look at and why not look at all of Rehberg’s votes in 2007?

Further down, in the same article, it states, “Congressional Quarterly, a nonpartisan publication that has examined congressional votes for 60 years, said Rehberg voted with the Republican majority 88 percent of the time last year, or slightly above average for GOP members.”

That 88% figure appears to be the more valid number…since it included all 2007 votes and was put together by a nonpartisan publication.

I believe the Lee State Bureau has confused the issue. Just look at the headline in today’s Billings Gazette about this same story, “Rehberg not with Bush third of time.” Or look at your headline above, “Rehberg, Bush agree only 68 percent.”

Given the facts of Rehberg’s entire 2007 voting record, as compiled by Congressional Quarterly, a nonpartisan publication, those are factually inaccurate headlines.

The headlines should either say “Rehberg not with Bush 12% of time” or “Rehberg, Bush agree only 68 percent on 16 key House votes in 2007″ or “Rehberg, Bush agree slightly more than most GOP members.”

Hello Matthew and welcome to Cairn. Thank you for your thoughtful post.

I actually covered the details of Rehberg’s voting record in greater detail in my original post - where I drew the distinction between Party Unity within the House of Representatives and support of the President. That article also seems to describe in greater depth where these numbers come from.

You throw a lot of weight behind the non-partisan analysis of CQ. Would you be surprisd to learn that both numbers - 88% and 68% - come from the same place? The confusion is probably due to the fact that it is impossible to compare voting records between a member of the Legislative Branch (who votes) and a member of the Executive Branch (who doesn’t).

The 88% figure refers to how often Rehberg - a Republican - votes with the majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives. There’s nothing tremendously newsworthy here. “A Republican votes with Republicans.”

The 68% figure is taken from the small number of bills that the President takes an official stand on (I support it, I will veto it). This is rare - it only happened 16 times in 2007 and that is where those 16 votes were tabulated from. On those issues, Rehberg split with the stated position of the President almost 1 out of 3 times.

Why the disparity? The answer here is that Republicans in Congress and the Republican in the White House operate independently from each other. In this case, it looks like 20% of the time (88% - 68%), Rehberg disagreed with the President while agreeing with his Republican colleagues in the House.

Ultimately though, you do have a point. None of these numbers really mean anything. It would be far better to examine Rehberg’s individual votes on their own merit rather than to try to hang him for supporting President Bush which relies on the assumption that Bush is wrong for Montana 100% of the time.

I agree that the percentages don’t matter. What does matter are the big issues. Those are where Denny is vulnerable

The best I’ve seen is Children’s Health Insurance - which Denny voted for twice including a Veto Override (although he did vote against it when it was much more expensive and included illegal immigrants) and the Iraq War - an initial vote to authorize which he shares with a broad majority of Democrats and subsequent votes to fund the troops that are fighting.

It’s going to take more than that to get Mr. Whatshisname elected to replace him. Of course, Art Noonan doesn’t really expect that to work in 2008.

[…] Diverging from President Bush, Rehberg voted to override the President’s promised veto of this bill. Democrat political maneuvering (they ran attack ads in the district of a Republican who voted for the bill the first time around) actually cost them a Republican vote making Rehberg one of 44 Republicans in the House to vote for the override. […]