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Items tagged: steve austria

Public Option Needs Our Support; Contact Your Congressmember

In response to the unsatisfactory compromise that Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman (CA-30) recently reached with the Blue Dog Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee, a group of progressives Democrats have signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House health care leaders.


State of Republican AAPIs

It has not been a good past couple of weeks for Republican AAPIs. [gallery]

Progressive Report Cards Handed Out to Congress

capitol Here's a nifty little site that calculates how progressive each member of Congress voted overall and in terms of particular issues:
ProgressivePunch is a non-partisan searchable database of Congressional voting records from a Progressive perspective. But we're convinced it's extremely useful irrespective of anyone's political positions. We show the performance of members within 160 different issue categories, and detailed vote descriptions, thereby empowering you to zero in on what matters to you.
The scorecard gives a lot of details, including the breakdown between "crucial" and "overall" votes, as well as votes by lifetime and in the current session. They also include the states general political tilt and a good breakdown of how they came up with their scores. The reason this list is so important is because we need to identify who are the true movement progressives so we can promote them as our leading voices. Let's make sure we turn to them as our spokespeople on key issues. Let's make sure that the ones who score highly are featured on the networks and in the media. Let's support them financially when we can. (Note: From a quick and completely unscientific glance, it seems like it's a lot of the moderates and conservatives who I tend to see on the TV.) Anyway, go check out where you Congresscritter is ranked. In terms of AAPI's, here are the lifetime scores of our two AAPI Senators on crucial and overall votes: 23 Akaka, Daniel (D-HI) 87.48 91.98 45 Inouye, Daniel (D-HI) 75.45 85.63 To check out our House members, join us on the other side:

Asian American Republicans Vote With GOP Wingnuts

steve-austriacao_img1 With the economic stimulus package receiving zero votes from any Republican members of Congress, that means the two Asian American freshmen Congressmen, Steve Austria (OH-07) and Joseph Cao (LA-02) sided with their party bosses and against their own constituencies. Austria had already proven himself to be a wingnut, parroting the recent revisionist Republican talking points about the Depression. But there was some hope for Cao. That was until it came time to vote.

Special Elections Could offer Opportunities for Asian Americans

Nov. 4th was a tough day for those hoping to increase the number of Asian American Democrats in Congress.  Not only did Ashwin Madia (MN-03) and Ed Chau (CA-42) lose their races in Minnesota and California, but the Republicans managed to add two AAPI's to their ranks: Steve Austria (OH-07) and Joseph Cao (LA-02).