Being from Massachusetts, I’m quite familiar with Senator John Kerry. He’s been one of my state’s representatives to Congress for as long as I can remember. When he first announced his candidacy for president, I supported him, but stopped for reasons I thought obvious but won’t go into here, as it is not the point of this article. The reason I am writing is that a little before Iowa Caucus, and more so after he won it, I began to think how much he actually deserved the title “Senator” while campaigning across the country. So I did a little research.
I opened up the Senate website and began to look at the roll call voting record. I went back over four months and decided I had found out enough. Kerry had participated in just 14 percent of the votes taken since mid-October. I also found out through an article in the newspaper that in all of 2003, Kerry had only voted on 23 percent of the bills on which President Bush had taken a stance.
I don’t know about you, but this definitely pissed me off. Our tax dollars are going to paying the salary of a man who isn’t doing his job. He isn’t even pretending to do his job. No matter how long I had worked for a company, I imagine that if I started following through on only one-seventh of my workload, I imagine believe that I would be out the door soon. And I know what Kerry’s excuse would be: He’s off trying to make things better for the American people; while conveniently at the same time finding himself a new and better job. Using the same analogy, I also believe that if I gave my employer the excuse that I missed 86 percent of my work because I was interviewing for another job, I would be given the boot.
This is something that should be inexcusable. Politicians, no matter what their seniority or status, should be expected to do their job to the people and earn their pay. They shouldn’t be given special permission to skip out on their work and go on romps throughout the country, telling people why they should get a promotion. We desperately need more accountability in the government. When I was scanning through the list, names other than Kerry, Lieberman, and Edwards had “not voting” listed next to them. All elected officials can and should be required to participate, to ensure that things like the Patriot Act, the prescription drug bill, and the recent appropriations bill (to name a few) are given the full scrutiny of the legislative process.
