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Nebraska’s First District Congressman Jeff Fortenberry is convening townhall meetings during Congress’ August recess.

We at GiN have long believed that Mr. Fortenberry should be replaced with an actual limited government representative because the evidence shows that he cannot be described as such. As Linda wrote in a September 2011 article, Fortenberry…

“…spends money like nobody’s business while, simultaneously, talking about how he’s leading the charge in Congress to restore fiscal responsibility. 

and, he also…

(archived link);

Chairs the U.S. House Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry, which, until recently, had jurisdiction over nutrition programs, including the food stamp program.  In his capacity as chair of that subcommittee, he created the impression on at least one “telephone townhall” he held that I “attended” that he’s comfortable, to some extent, with the government telling people what, and what not, to eat;

Voted to support cuts to only 40% of the programs his Republican colleagues in the House agreed could and should be cut to help balance the federal budget;

Voted at least twice to extend unemployment benefits formerly/http://static.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=41929&category=10; and

Has voted to increase taxes.”

Note that I left out one of Linda’s of list items – see suggested issue #3 about which to question Jeff Fortenberry, below.

Isn’t there something in Eccelesiasties about there being nothing new under the sun? If the scriptures don’t do it for you, how about that old saying about a leopard and his spots? We see evidence that one Mr. Fortenberry hasn’t changed in the  last twelve months.

But, alas, there was no viable opponent in the primary election. Of course we do not want an even more liberal representative from Nebraska for District 1 and unless a stellar write-in candidate with adequate support pops up in the next five minutes, looks like we’re stuck with Mr. Fortenberry until 2014.

In lieu of removing Fortenberry from office, we think we need to…

1) Regularly point out to people in District 1 in Nebraska that their representative is NOT a limited government advocate just because he has an “R” behind his name

2) Highlight particularly absurd policies he supports

3) Encourage constituents to regularly apply pressure to the Congressman in the unlikely event he will be pushed away from absurd votes

4) Encourage constituents to go shopping for a better representative next election time

Continue reading via source post here: http://grassrootsne.com/?p=8866

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