Watching my congressman.

Recently I have made some posts about govtrack.us. A site used to track what is going on inside the Congress of the United States of America. Other than a few bills I am monitoring, I am alsow monitoring my elected officials to they congress. I found something today that was both annoying and somewhat amusing. ...

One of the bills I had been following was House Resolution 2237, a bill "To provide for the redeployment of United States Armed Forces and defense contractors from Iraq". Since I am not a fan of war, and especially this war, I actually called and left a message for my Representative in the house, Representative Mike McIntyre, to vote in favor of this bill. Unfortunately, he was one of the 24% of Democrats who were against the bill.

After I saw that, I started to look at what else he had done lately. Well, on March 26th he had sponsored House Simple Resolution 268. A resolution, "Supporting responsible fatherhood, promoting marriage, and encouraging greater involvement of fathers in the lives of their children, especially on Father's Day." Being a father I was intrigued. One quote from the resolution I found somewhat amusing given his May 10th vote was:

Whereas children with fathers at home tend to do better in school, to be less prone to emotional and behavioral problems, and to have more successful relationships;

Whereas boys and girls alike demonstrate greater self-control and ability to take initiative when fathers are actively involved in their upbringing;

And yet he votes to keep thousands of fathers ( and mothers ) away from home for an increasingly extended period of time.

I took a look at the text of the bill and maybe it was too simple for him. Perhaps he needs a complex answer to this problem. Perhaps, due to the number of military bases that his constituents support he likes the idea of prolonged military engagements that have already achieved their initial objectives. Or, on the other hand, he sees the mess we've made over there and he is holding on to the hope that we can still clean it up.