An analysis of Kuhl’s voting record
Fighting29th has an interesting analysis of Kuhl’s voting record: the short story is Kuhl votes with Republicans on procedural issues about 100% of the time but votes with Dems on the bills themselves about 60% of the time (these figures are for the current Congress, the 110th):
My statistics show that Kuhl votes with the majority in about 60% of tight votes on important legislation. There’s a hard core of 30-40 Republicans who oppose most important bills, but Kuhl is generally not among that group.
So far this session, Kuhl’s voting record, like almost every other Republican, is that of a party loyalist on procedural votes. On other votes, he generally supports most legislation that doesn’t hit a hot button like Iraq, stem cells, or the rights of corporations. He’s a moderate-to-conservative Republican, pretty much as advertised.
There’s some kind of a strange myth that Kuhl is a boob, an idiot, who should be easy to beat in a general election. It’s not true — he’s a cagey politician who has shifted towards the center since his near death experience last fall.
Related posts:
Exile on Ericsson St. opines:
Hey, you might be right, and you might be wrong, but let’s not misuse the statistics. The statistics you quote, taken from Fighting 29th don’t show movement in any particular direction. They show how Kuhl has voted this Congress, and in order to show movement, there needs to be a comparison with how Kuhl voted in the previous Congress.
I also don’t really believe, without data, that Kuhl has shifted towards the center. That’s your opinion, and my opinion is the opposite (and I admit that my opinion is quite heavily weighted towards his stance on Iraq). So until someone can show an actual shift in his voting records, I dispute your statement.
There are dozens of procedural or amendment votes where a congressman can vote “yes” to appear to have one position, but ultimately cause the bill to be defeated. To get a sense of Kuhl’s real politics, only count the way that he votes on bills which have been reconciled with the Senate versions of the bill and have been passed out of conference committee for final approval.
Republicans are masters of controlling the procedure by which bills become law so that rank-and-file representatives can get political cover by voting “yes” on popular bills, while the bill itself actually goes nowhere. The simplest tactic is to kill bills by letting them pass in one house and but not the other. Bogus procedural votes or votes for prettily-named “poison pill” amendments or bills are other simple tactics. It’s that sort of nonsense which led to John Kerry’s infamous statement “I voted for the war before I voted against it.” - i.e., he voted for one version of a bill and then voted against the final version.
Got to agree here with both Thomas and especially dj_paige.
I have 5 mins befor e I need to go so I quickly looked at 4 bills
HR 1495 (Water resources) passed 394-25
HR 1227 (Gulf Coast recovery) passed 302-125
HR 5 (minimum Wage) passed 356-71
HR2 (Minimum Wage) passed 315-116
So Randy voted with these. The fact that the house passed the minimum wage does that mean the Republican moved to the Center whatever moving to the center means.
I don’t think so.
Problem is all these bills are weighted equally in Rotten’s score card. They are not all equal. Show me where Randy was on a fence and voted against is party with the Democrats consistently and you might have something. right not I don’t see the value of this score card.
I’ll have to argue later tonight - see ya.
I don’t have all the stats from last time but according to rotten, Kuhl is in the most liberal 25% of the Republican caucus this time. He was about average last time.
I guess I’ve heard a lot of people say “Massa should have beaten Kuhl last time, Kuhl will be easy to beat this time” — and I just don’t think that’s true.
Exile says:
The problem with all of this is that it assumes every vote is equally important. But on the burning issues of our time, where is Kuhl? He is conservative on Iraq, he is conservative on stem cells, he is conservative abortion, he is conservative. Yes, sometimes he does things with the liberals, but he’s still conservative and until he comes over to our side on Iraq, I cut him no slack. He is a conservative, and I mean that in the most negative of contexts.
Nobody’s happy with any analysis of voting records, so I’m not surprised to see some dissatisfaction. Last year, I tried a pure statistical approach, loading a database of votes for the 109th Congress and ranking Kuhl among Republicans. He voted pretty solidly with his party. No surprise there.
This time, since Congress has changed, I wanted to try a bit of a different approach. I picked bills that were disputed (i.e., not party-line votes), concerned important issues (not naming post offices) and were not procedural votes. In other words, these are the bills where Kuhl’s vote matters. I put each of these bills in a scorecard, but also provided the detail so readers could decide what’s important to them. I probably should have just left the scorecard off, but it’s a rough-and-ready indicator of where Kuhl is standing.
To address a couple of the concerns of commenters:
Weighting: The criteria for inclusion on the list is pretty objective. This adds a completely subjective aspect to it. I’m trying to produce something that has some claim to fairness.
Percentages: Remember that this percentage is just the bills that meet the criteria. Exile mentioned that he’s in the 25% most liberal - dunno, I didn’t calculate that. My guess is that he’s in the middle somewhere. As time goes on, I’ll probably do the pure statistical approach again, but we’re less than 1/4 through this session so it’s kind of early for statistics to mean anything.
Procedure: Louise Slaughter runs the procedure in the House and the days of poison-pill amendments, etc. are over in that body. I agree with Thomas’ point on the Senate, but Kuhl can’t control that - I’m trying to examine one Representative, not a whole party.
Bottom line: Know your opponent. Kuhl almost never misses a vote, he tries hard to service his constituents, and he occasionally votes for moderate bills that have bi-partisan support. Democrats can either accept those facts and figure out how to beat the real Randy Kuhl, or they can run against an imaginary fictitious blunderer.
One last thought -
Guys - we are missing the point here. Exile’s main and only point is that Randy Kuhl is not stupid (Exile used other words like he is cagey etc). Rotten in his last comment sums it up rather nicely as well with his comments about an Kuhl being painted as an “imaginary fictitious blunderer”
To get there - Exile uses some voting record data gleened from Rotten’s site. These are actual votes and there is an interpretation of Kuhl’s record, supposed movement etc used as justification. I don’t buy that movement and the debate is is over a voting record. Who cares. It is interpretation of a set of data.
The point here is Randy Kuhl is not stupid and is a cagey political power in the NY-29th. He got that way through years in the NY politics. He is in a solidly Red district. He has a certain demeaner that connects with people. Did I say he isn’t stupid. I also want to say that Randy Kuhl should not be taken for granted.
To that point I’m sure we all agree.
Oh - I think he is wrong on most of the issues. Certainly too conservative for my tastes. As paige points out Iraq, stem cells, choice. that he voted for minimum wage doesn’t excuse his votes on Iraq - in this Congress or the last one. Oh yeah - where was he on Social Security? Sponsoring a bill to privatizing it.
NY-29th is a tough race. It was 2 years ago and will be next year.
You said he was one of 60 republicans who voted with Dems on many major bills. So to me that places him in the most liberal 30% (not 25%, I guess).
Yeah, that sums it up. Kuhl will be tough and should not be underestimated.
I do think that the summer war votes will hurt him. Even if he jumps ship in September, he’s a long paper trail of supporting a very unpopular occupation. That’s something he didn’t really have in 06.
Just because he is now in the “most liberal 30%” still doesn’t imply movement on Kuhl’s part. He has only moved towards the center IF and only IF his positions have changed on important issues. He has not moved toward the center if his statistical rank was median/average last Congress and “most liberal 30%†this Congress.
He has moved toward the center if in the last Congress he held the typical conservative position on issue XYZ, and now he holds a position, and votes accordingly, that is much closer to the typical liberal position. And I still see no evidence of this. So, Exile: point to a major issue where Kuhl has actually changed his position to be closer to the liberals, please, and then you can make the argument that Kuhl has moved to the center. Your numerical/statistical arguments haven’t proved a thing.