Here’s my latest submission to my local South Bend Tribune’s Voice of the People:
On Thursday, January 8th the South Bend Tribune ran an article titled “Local pols: 40 hours is full time,” in advance of the House of Representatives passage of the “Forty Hours is Full Time Act,” which sought to amend the ObamaCare mandate that 30 hours should be considered full time in order to mandate that employers must cover their health care insurance for employees . Both Senator Joe Donnelly and Representative Jackie Walorski spoke in favor of this change, something that I found very ironic.
As for Joe Donnelly he was part of group that held out but in the end voted for the passage of ObamaCare, perhaps if he took time to rebel against the then House leader, Nancy Pelosi, and took time not to “to Pass the Bill to Find Out What’s In It” he would have known about these flaws.
While Jackie Walorski wasn’t in Congress at that time it should be noted that last month her actions proved no better. She followed her leadership’s instruction and voted yes on the $1.2 Trillion, 1600 page “CRomnibus” bill, which was introduced to the House on a Tuesday night for a Thursday vote that included full funding for ObamaCare through the remainder of the 2015 fiscal year.
I would like to suggest rather than issuing positive sound bite that our Representative spend more time representing the people that elected them to office.
Mark Watkins
South Bend, In 46635
markewatkins.com
Now to add more context. The article that I was referring to can be seen here: http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/local-pols-hours-is-full-time/article_79737715-5196-582e-81be-395d40eec45b.html
Back, late in 2009, my then Representative Joe Donnelly, while ObamaCare was being pushed through Congress, was part of a coalition headed by Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak, one of the last holdouts in voting yes on the Bill, purportedly standing by their pro-life stance that the Bill not cover abortions. In the end they caved based on Obama’s statement that he would sign an Executive Order stating just that.
In 2010 with the big Tea Party wave election Joe Donnelly won in a close vote 48.2% versus 46.8% vote against Jackie Walorski. In that election Ms Walorski said all the right things claiming that she would represent conservative, grass roots, Tea Party values if elected.
Following the 2010 census the 2nd District was shifted to make it more likely that a Republican would win. This led to Congressman Donnelly to chose not seek the House seat but instead run for the Senate seat that had been held by Richard Lugar, who lost in the primary to Richard Mourdock. Mr. Donnelly won in the general election after Mr. Mourdock managed to get ensnared in the fake “war on women” issue.
This should have left Ms. Walorski with an easy win with widespread name recognition and again claiming that she would be a true conservative and represent the people of the 2nd District. She did win, but in a closer than expected fashion by 49% ti 47.6% against Brandon Mueller.
Once Ms. Walorski made it to Washington she fell immediately fell in line with the Washington elite and has followed John Boehner’s instructions and voted in lock step with his agenda. Her Freedom Works scorecard shows her at a solid 57%.
The end result is that I have no faith that neither one of my local politicians have any interest in representing our interests on a national level and I will make every attempt I can to point that out.
markE watkins 