Hoekstra skips vote on extending unemployment benefits to attend fundraiser

by: eclectablog

Fri Jul 02, 2010 at 10:01:26 AM EDT

He had to attend a fundraiser held on his behalf in Muskegon.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), who is running for governor. Hoekstra, who hopes to govern a state with an unemployment rate of 13.6%, the second highest in the nation, spent the afternoon instead traveling to the Muskegon Country Club for a fundraiser. If the Senate fails to pass the House's unemployment extension, then 90,000 Michigan residents are set to lose their unemployment checks by Saturday. Hoekstra also failed to vote on the unemployment insurance extension bill brought to the floor earlier this week.

If he gets the nomination, I surely hope the Michigan Democrats bash him over the head with this repeatedly. Can you hear me, Mark Brewer? I knew you could.

It's ironic that this news comes on the same day the Detroit Free Press has a breathless article titled "Pete Hoekstra's secret to success: Hard work".

It's one thing to win a congressional race, in part, by riding a bike around the district and meeting people face-to-face.

It's something else to cover Michigan's 97,990 square miles to meet the state's 9.9 million residents. But in his quest to become the next governor, Hoekstra is trying to hit a piece of that real estate, with a goal of riding his Trek road bike 1,000 miles and working a couple of hours at 100 different jobs to get a sense of what's on the minds of Michiganders. So far, he has ridden 485 miles and done 48 jobs.

[snip]

The job visits are exposing him to the most important people this election season -- voters. Whether it's employees or the people who patronize the businesses where he works, many are getting their first personal contact with a gubernatorial candidate.

See? There's the problem. Pete's only talking to people who already HAVE jobs. Maybe if he took some time to talk to the nearly 700,000 Michiganders who are out of work and looking for a job, he'd understand how serious their need is. C'mon, Pete, get back on your bike and pedal on down to the unemployment office, why don'tchya? Meet some real jobless Americans, look them in the eye, and explain to them why your gubernatorial campaign supercedes their need for a helping hand to keep food on the table, electricity on and a roof over their heads. And explain to them why you would have voted against it if you had shown up.

I'm sure they'd love to have a word with you.

Or two.
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P.S. For an added bit of irony, here is Hoekstra's website logo:

Bruce Patterson: Grandstanding Tenther

by: Cordelia Lear

Sun Sep 20, 2009 at 14:57:08 PM EDT

Here's a direct link to the resolution. It was passed by the State Senate on September 17, by the way.

Tenthers are people who basically think that the Tenth Amendment renders everything the federal government does unconstitutional. They also conveniently chose to ignore over two hundred years of court decisions where the relationship between the states and the federal government has been shaped.

Ian Millhouser writes at the American Spectator

These efforts are all part of a movement whose members are convinced that the 10th Amendment of the Constitution prohibits spending programs and regulations disfavored by conservatives. Indeed, while "birther" conspiracy theorists dominate the airwaves with tales of a mystical Kenyan baby smuggled into Hawaii just days after his birth, these "tenther" constitutionalists offer a theory that is no less radical but infinitely more dangerous.

Tentherism, in a nutshell, proclaims that New Deal-era reformers led an unlawful coup against the "True Constitution," exploiting Depression-born desperation to expand the federal government's powers beyond recognition. Under the tenther constitution, Barack Obama's health-care reform is forbidden, as is Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The federal minimum wage is a crime against state sovereignty; the federal ban on workplace discrimination and whites-only lunch counters is an unlawful encroachment on local businesses.

He concludes:

After years of raging against mythical judges who "legislate from the bench," tenther conservatives now demand a constitution that will not let anyone legislate at all.