Progressive Action Score: 19A score of 19 means that Rep. Bartlett has acted to support 19% of a slate of progressive policies in the 109th Congress.
Progressive, forward-looking actions Rep. Bartlett has taken to merit a PAS of 19:Rep. Bartlett voted a firm "NO" against the Tyranny Act, H.R. 6166. Rep. Bartlett swore a solemn oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Rep Bartlett honored that oath by actively opposing H.R. 6166, which directly attacks the Constitution, and through its attack upon the Constitution attacks the freedom of every American and every person living under American jurisdiction.
Shamefully passed into law, the Tyranny Act installs undemocratic executive committees without review to designate citizens and noncitizens alike as enemy combatants without standards for proof. It grants George W. Bush amnesty for his current violations of law. It allows the thoroughly untrustworthy George W. Bush supreme authority to decide whether an interrogation technique qualifies as torture. It allows hearsay evidence to be used to convict an accused person. It permits indefinite detention without review.
All of these provisions in the bill are unconstitutional. That makes this bill unAmerican. But Representative Bartlett acted with honor by standing up to this unAmerican bill. Had more members of Congress acted with the sense of honor displayed by Rep. Bartlett, our liberty would not now be in such peril.
The Patriot Act is a betrayal of the great American tradition of liberty because it encourages the government to spy on the legal, personal activities of Americans who have not broken the law. The Bush Administration is using that power to grab information out of commercial and public databases and assemble them into a single giant computer database through which the private affairs of every American citizen can be tracked by government officials. Although the Patriot Act reauthorization passed, Rep. Bartlett took a brave stand by voting NO, protecting traditional American liberties.
Roscoe Bartlett has formally supported H.R. 1157, which would keep government agents from riffling through your bookstore receipts and library records without your permission or knowledge. Unlike others, Rep. Bartlett has shown true backbone, standing for privacy, for individual liberty, and against the Big Brother mentality that seems to be all the rage in Washington these days.
Progressive political actions that Rep. Bartlett could have taken but unfortunately chose not to take:- By voting "no" on the Farr Amendment, Rep. Bartlett voted to keep Section 102 in H.R. 418, giving a Bush administration bureaucrat the ability to nullify any law without judicial review of that decision. Where I come from, they call that dictatorship.
- By voting "no" on the Scott Amendment, Rep. Bartlett voted to keep language in H.R. 27 that allows organizations to engage in government-funded religious discrimination in hiring. We had thought that bigotry was old hat, and that the separation of church and state was secure. With this vote, Rep. Bartlett has helped to weaken the constitution and bring bigotry back in style.
- To members of Congress, talk of patriotism comes easy. But what about action to preserve what is great about America? What about protecting the symbol of America, the bald eagle itself? On September 29, 2005, a slim majority of member of the United States House of Representatives voted for H.R. 3824, an attack upon the landmark law that brought the American bald eagle back from the brink of extinction. Without the Endangered Species Act, the American bald eagle would probably not exist any more, except on the backs of our quarters and as a graphic on Republican web sites promoting corporate pollution.
We've seen the American bald eagle fly, and we think that it is worth protecting. 229 members of the House of Representatives disagreed. They voted to seriously weaken the protection of endangered species like the American bald eagle. They did it for the sake of profits for big business. A NO vote would have represented a courageous stand for the Endangered Species Act. In a telling betrayal, Representative Bartlett failed to vote NO. For shame.
- Rep. Bartlett has not yet cosponsored H.R. 2412, which would provide more information to the public about contacts between lobbyists and politicians, and which would slow down the revolving door of politics in which politicians move into cushy corporate jobs after they retire in exchange for favors. What is Representative Bartlett's problem with ethics?
- Rep. Bartlett has not yet cosponsored H.R. 40, which would acknowledge the injustices of slavery and racial discrimination and establish a commission to study them.
- Rep Bartlett has not yet cosponsored H.R. 63, which would make Election Day a federal holiday to make it easier to get out and vote.
- Rep Bartlett has not yet cosponsored H.R. 759, which would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through market-based systems.
- Rep. Bartlett has not yet cosponsored H.R. 550, a bill which would sensibly require the establishment of a backup paper record of votes for those times when electronic voting machines fail. Why is Rep. Bartlett unwilling to protect the bedrock of democracy, Americans' faith that every vote counts?
- Rep. Bartlett has not yet cosponsored H.R. 952, which would put an end to the practice of "extraordinary rendition," in which Bush Administration officials send people into the custody of certain nations, knowing full well (some would say intending) that they will be tortured there. Extraordinary rendition is another stain on the moral clarity of the United States. It is a horrible irony that in a "War on Terror," the United States government would allow the use of terror as a tool. Why is Rep. Bartlett unwilling to stand against American complicity in the use of torture?
- Roscoe Bartlett has not yet cosponsored H.R. 1440, which would keep members of the Federal Communication Commission from using their appointed positions to censor cable, satellite or internet programs they consider to be indecent. These "narrowcast" programs are accessed only by those who specifically request them, so why should the government make it their business to keep people from seeing what they want to see? Why has Rep Bartlett not yet lent support to this sensible, freedom-defending bill?
- We may think we live in modern times, but the U.S. Constitution still does not guarantee that individual rights shall apply equally to men and women. Without such a constitutional guarantee, all it could take is a rogue judge or an emboldened conservative Congress to take women's rights away by a simple majority vote. On the other hand, this nation is still encumbered with unfair legal notions that, all other things being equal, give mothers custody advantages over fathers. The current state of unequal protection is unfair to both women and men, and devalues our common underlying humanity.
Roscoe Bartlett has not yet cosponsored H.J. Res 37, which would amend the United States Constitution to simply state the following: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification." It's simple, it's obvious, and it's about time something was done to enshrine this principle in the Constitution for men and women alike. When will Rep. Bartlett step out of the Stone Age and take this important stand for equality?
- Rep. Bartlett has not yet cosponsored H.R. 567, which would preserve and protect the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from short-sighted, unnecessary development.
Contact Rep Bartlett by E-mail, Phone (at 202-225-2721), or Fax (at 202-225-2193) to ask why they have chosen not to take the progressive path in these matters.
| | Regressive Conservative Score: 77A score of 77 means that Rep. Bartlett has acted to support 77% of a slate of conservative, wrongheaded policies in the 109th Congress.
Regressive, destructive, and downright unAmerican actions Rep. Bartlett has taken that contribute to a RCS of 77:
To members of Congress, talk of patriotism comes easy. But what about action to preserve what is great about America? What about protecting the symbol of America, the bald eagle itself? On September 29, 2005, a slim majority of member of the United States House of Representatives voted for H.R. 3824, an attack upon the landmark law that brought the American bald eagle back from the brink of extinction. Without the Endangered Species Act, the American bald eagle would probably not exist any more, except on the backs of our quarters and as a graphic on Republican web sites promoting corporate pollution.
We've seen the American bald eagle fly, and we think that it is worth protecting. 229 members of the House of Representatives disagreed. They voted to seriously weaken the protection of endangered species like the American bald eagle. They did it for the sake of profits for big business. A NO vote would have represented a courageous stand for the Endangered Species Act. In a telling betrayal, Representative Bartlett voted YES for the gutting of the Endangered Species Act. For shame.
H.J. Res 57 is a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that reads To secure the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience: The people retain the right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property, including schools. The United States and the States shall not establish any official religion nor require any person to join in prayer or religious activity.
The point of this amendment starts by prefacing all following clauses by stating that they will exist only is so far as To secure the people's right to acknowledge God. As of now, the word God is not mentioned or even indirectly referred to in the Constitution. Not even once. This amendment would change that, fundamentally altering the freedom of religion clause in the Bill of Rights so that it would only apply to those religions that include a belief in God.
Who is this God character that Rep. Bartlett is advocating for, anyway? The answer may seem so obvious as to be trite, but it is not. God is not a character in Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Taoism, or Shinto. God is also not a part of Wicca or Paganism. God never shows up in Native American traditions. God only shows up as a character in three religions, all part of the same tradition: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. H. J. Res 57 would therefore provide a privileged legal status to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All other religious and spiritual traditions would have second-class status. Secular Americans would be in an even worse position under Bartlett's amendment to the Constitution. They would be third-class.
Atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other secular Americans would not be forced to attend church under the Istook amendment. Instead, their children would be forced to attend public schools that would be converted into church-like environments, surrounded by government employees paid to promote worship of God through prayer and worship of the Ten Commandments. Oh, the children of secular parents would not be forced to engage in the religious rite of prayer, exactly. They would just be given the third-class status of their secular parents if they refused to pray.
Whose prayer would secular Americans be forced to fund through their tax money? Prayers to God, of course. Buddhist meditation and Hindu devotions to Shiva or Vishnu or Ganesh or Kali would not be given any government protection under this proposed amendment. Only the three religions of God would get special government funding under the amendment. Representative Bartlett calls this the "Religious Freedom Amendment," but the amendment is about freedom in only a twisted sense: the freedom of religious majorities to use government funds to try to proselytize and convert the rest of us. That's not government's proper business. And Representative Bartlett does not or cannot recognize that, showing a galling lack of the fitness and judgment necessary to carry out the duties of a member of Congress.
Section 102 of H.R. 418 authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to nullify any law she or he deems necessary to build roads and fences in the vicinity of a national border. Furthermore, Section 102 of H.R. 418 makes it legally impossible for any court or agency of the government to review the Secretary of Homeland Security's decision to nullify any law. In short, Section 102 places the Bush administration untouchably above the law.The Farr Amendment would have stricken this language, and only this language, from H.R. 418, making a vote against the Farr Amendment a vote against the rule of law. Shame on you, Representative Bartlett, for voting "no" on the Farr Amendment. You stand in disgraceful historical company among those who favor arbitrary dictatorship. That's downright unAmerican.
Representative Roscoe Bartlett has decided to support H.R. 997, a bill that would declare English to be the official language of the United States, would mandate that official government business be conducted in English only, and presumptively declare that workplaces in the private sector follow these rules too. Look, just because Rep. Bartlett seems to have some kind of personal problem with brown-skinned "ethnic" people who speak a different language than English doesn't mean that such prejudice should be pushed on the rest of the country. The United States of America has always been a nation of multiple origins, multiple cultures and multiple languages. Legislating diversity away will not make it disappear. On the contrary, this legislation will only divide the nation into a privileged English-speaking clique and an untouchable caste of non-English speakers who are denied access to government, to civic participation, and even to the private workplace. This is not what America stands for. Shame on you, Roscoe Bartlett, for demeaning the standard of openness that has made this country great.
By voting for the Hostettler Amendment to H.R. 2862, Rep. Bartlett voted to keep a ruling of a federal court from being enforced. Why? Because a judge decided that a religious monument on the grounds of the Gibson county courthouse was an unconstitutional endorsement of one religion over others. Rep. Bartlett has apparently decided that any personally distasteful court ruling can be overturned, just because. That's not the rule of law. That's an arbitrary violation of the separation of powers. And, in this case, it allows pushy and vocal religious groups to shove their beliefs down everybody else's throats. That's not just wrong, it is downright unAmerican.
The way that U.S. citizenship works is pretty simple when you get down to it: if you are born in this country, you are a citizen. Leave it to Representative Roscoe Bartlett to come up with a way to change that. Representative Bartlett has thrown support behind H.R. 698, which would deny citizenship to American-born babies if their parents aren’t themselves citizens. Such a change would move us toward the German model of citizenship, in which families who have lived in Germany for generations were denied citizenship because they lacked the so-called "virtue" of a German bloodline.
Even more bizarrely under this bill, if a baby is born in America of a father who is a citizen and a mother who is not, the baby is denied American citizenship if the father and mother are not married. Yes, you are reading that right — the Republicans even want to deny babies citizenship when the father is himself a citizen. How extreme. How xenophobic. How simply unacceptable.
By voting "no" on the Scott Amendment, Rep. Bartlett voted to keep language in H.R. 27 that allows organizations to engage in government-funded religious discrimination in hiring. We had thought that bigotry was old hat, and that the separation of church and state was secure. With this vote, Rep. Bartlett has helped to weaken the constitution and bring bigotry back in style.
One of the more purely nationalist pieces of legislation to enter the U.S. Congress so far this year is House Joint Resolution 10, which would amend the United States Constitution so that "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."
The amendment would transform the American flag from a symbol of liberty into a nationalist idol to be worshipped in the cult of the Homeland. Just consider the language used in the amendment. The amendment proposes to prohibit the "physical desecration" of the American flag. Let's be clear: to desecrate something means to demean its sacred status.
Sacred status? Sacred? In traditional American democracy, the American flag is not sacred. There is no official cult of flag worship. Flag worshipping cults, like the Boy Scouts, have been private organizations. However, this amendment would elevate a physical object, the American flag, into a special religious realm of untouchability and spiritual transcendence. The amendment would insert the notion of sacred idols into the United States Constitution for the first time.
In supporting House Joint Resolution 10, Representative Bartlett stands against good sense and with the nationalist mob. We need fewer, not more, demagogues like Bartlett in the Congress.
It's bad enough that a number of states have decided on their own to take away marriage rights from same-sex couples. Now H.R. 72 proposes to do the same for people living in the District of Columbia. What makes this bill particularly nefarious is that it would have the Congress dictate social mores for residents of the District of Columbia at a time when members of the District of Columbia have no legal representation whatsoever in the Congress. By supporting this bill, Rep. Bartlett has dragged the practice of telling others how to live their lives down to a new low.
At a time when our budget deficit is soaring, George W. Bush and the Congress should be finding ways for the American people to fulfill their responsibilities to future generations. That means that we must pay our way: when Bush and the Congress propose and pass large budgets, they must provide for their payment as well. Yes, this means taxes. But while the Republican-controlled Congress is allowing the government's budget to spiral wildly higher, it irresponsibly suggests that we ought to cut taxes. And to make matters worse, the taxes they propose to cut are taxes paid by those who can by definition afford to pay them: the wealthy. Nobody has to pay a penny for anything up to a million dollars they get in income when a relative dies. But H.R. 8 would permanently eliminate income taxes on any unearned money over a million bucks that people receive as part of an inheritance. You and I won't get that kind of inheritance: it's the already filthy rich who will benefit. At this time of budget deficits, we shouldn't be cutting away these sorts of taxes. It's not fiscally prudent. It's radically regressive. By supporting this legislation, Representative Bartlett has decided to act in an irresponsible manner that is fiscally dangerous to us all.
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