Hultgren votes with the Dems

by , posted on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 at 8:35 am

Here’s a thing I did not see coming from my new congresscritter: Randy Hultgren has voted, along with a handful of other new tea-partiers in the House, to block the extension of three controversial Patriot Act provisions. And they succeeded in doing just that.

The motivation is actually quite consistent with tea-party logic – they see it as an unecessary intrusion on personal liberty – but the thing liberals need to think about is this: When’s the last time we saw a crack in the Repub block that resulted in blocking legislation that the Repubs wanted and the Dems did not? When? Anybody? Anybody?

The incident has me pondering two things this morning:

1. Where else can liberals find common ground with these Freshmen?

2. What would have happened if Progressives in Congress had displayed a similar unwillingness to “play ball” when the game itself violated their core convictions?

I could drive myself crazy pondering that latter ephemeral question, but the crack in the Republican block just delivered a tangible result.

So let’s be practical: What else can we do with this interesting new crack in the world?

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One Response to “Hultgren votes with the Dems”

  1. Matt Walker says:

    I was very happy to see Randy Hultgren vote against the extension of the Patriot Act, and extremely disappointed to watch Barack Obama sign off on the extension after it passed. I am also happy to see that Randy Hultgren is working to obtain funds for the METRA station in Oswego. As far as the “tea party” congressman, I think you’re still going to have a mixed bag when it comes to issues of civil liberties. There were plenty of “tea party” congressman who voted in favor of extending the Patriot Act. There were some Democrats, too. Whoever voted in favor of that legislation can safely be deemed an enemy of the people.

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