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(Note – this article was originally published on our site on 12/2/10, but a minor technical problem caused it to vanish so we’re republishing.)

By Shelli Dawdy

I wish I could say that I find the results of Tuesday’s Senate vote on S-510 a surprise, but I don’t. People have expressed shock that so many Republican Senators voted in favor of granting a lot more power to the FDA, spending $1.4 billion we cannot afford, and likely hurting smaller-sized farms. An article published Tuesday on the Weekly Standard standard site spells out how the bill will not make food any safer and is just another Washington power grab that will hurt business.

Some Nebraskans have expressed shock that Senator Mike Johanns voted for the measure.

The vote by Senator Johanns and others should not shock so many people. I think an examination of the voting records of many Republican members of Congress in either their current positions or in past elected offices would most likely reveal many votes that would not necessarily square with a definition of “conservative” or “constitutionalist”.

Consider that many members of the U.S. House and Senate are career politicians, so they have moved up within the system that helped bring us to the current state of affairs. That state of affairs includes unsustainable federal deficits, state budget shortfalls, government growth at all levels, raising inflation, and shrinking liberty. Contrary to what too many Americans, and yes, too many Nebraskans like to tell themselves, this stuff did not start in January 2009. It took a long time to get here. If today’s crop of legislative representatives in D.C. have been in the system for a very long time…just how conservative or constitutional can many of them be?

People were concerned about a lame duck session of Congress – considering their worst fears about immigration, cap and trade, and other Democratic fantasies may materialize. People are watching Congress closer now than has been the case historically and they are shocked to discover there are too many Republicans that they should have been worried about.

As I noted in “Don’t Count On a Republican Congress to Save the Day” in August of this year:

“Sure, most of the Republicans are talking a good game now. And yes, now almost all are voting no on the bills which receive a lot of attention, like cap and trade, health care, and financial regulatory reform.

But when Americans are paying less attention, the Republicans revert to their habits of accepting perpetual government solutions to every conceivable problem. Further, they display incompetence in making effective opposing arguments when they are attempting to obstruct one or other of the majority party’s brazen power grabs.

Accepting big government solutions, they don’t even put up a fight.”

I don’t think the Senate Republicans who voted for the food safety bill believed anyone would really notice their votes. At the time I wrote the article in which that statement appeared, I was focused on what seemed to me to be grand hopes that a November 2 Republican sweep would mean some earth shattering changes would occur in Congress come January. Not to burst anyone’s election celebration balloon, but this food safety vote in the Senate constitutes a minor wake-up call. It turns out that the House version of this bill, H.R. 2749 passed in 2009, received “Yays” from two of Nebraska’s Congressman; Jeff Fortenberry (CD01) and Lee Terry (CD02).

I’m not at all surprised by Rep. Fortenberry’s vote on this matter. Just before the November 2 election, we published an article about how Fortenberry has publicly begun to back off from repealing the health care law, and followed up with an analysis piece on his voting record in the arena of spending. It seems far past time that Nebraska’s First Congressional District voters begin to recognize some realities about just who they have representing them in D.C. It looks like Rep. Fortenberry will need to hear frequently from his constituents if they wish to see him vote consistently according to the Constitution and for limited government.

For those who have the patience…

There is a small amount of hope that the food safety bill may yet be stopped; Roll Call reports that Senate Democrats violated the Constitution by including what are essentially taxes in the bill¹. It’s possible that this unconstitutional maneuver may cause the bill to sit until the next session in January or out-going Majority Leader Harry Reid must choose to spend the little time that is left during this lame duck session working through several procedures to get a finalized version passed. That would mean Reid would have less time to spend on other matters. It appears that the House will have to re-vote on the measure. If Reps. Fortenberry and Terry receive enough blow back from constituents perhaps they might see the light and vote “Nay” on the second round. It does seem like they and Senator Johanns should hear from their constituents about their votes in any case.

To locate contact information for Nebraska’s Congressional representatives, go to THIS GiN page.

CLICK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Note: I did not take time to mention Senator Ben Nelson’s vote on the food safety bill because I am of the opinion that contacting Senator Nelson is a complete waste of time. If the man could not heed the fact that 2/3 of his constituents were opposed to a power-grabbing, economy-killing, liberty-robbing bill like health care, yet he voted for it anyway, does it seem likely he would listen about a food safety bill?

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