Edwards-The Patriot Act amendment TIED and did not pass

[liveoaktx]

and I see that both of the Reps in my district, the one that currently is, Stenholm and the one that might be, Edwards, voted no, along with the Republicans.

I had thought Chet Edwards was a yellow-dog democrat. But a campaign manager, Chris, told me the other day that he is bi-partisan. Does this mean that he deliberately decided to vote with the Republicans? I had put a Chet Edwards sign in my yard, and will hold my nose and vote for him versus a Republican, but am sorely disappointed to see that he did not vote for this.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-house-rollcall-patriot-act,0,1683775.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[Gman]

1. Chet Edwards has a very long history of being a flake

Edwards has never been trustworthy and at times has been flat out dishonest about his position on different issues. My experience with him goes back to his days in the TX Senate when we first discovered he can't be trusted.

He can't be beat in a primary and, unfortunately, is the lesser of the two evils of him and a republican.

[liveoaktx]

2. Problem is that he's running against Arlene Wolgomuth

Even Republicans in my area don't want to vote for her and are considering changing parties to vote for Chet. But maybe that's what he's doing, is courting the Republican vote.

[efhmc]

3. Chet is a good representative. He gathers lots of votes from repukes,

so unfortunately, this may be an election year decision to continue that support. (I wish he were still my rep.) Steinholm is also very bi, but to me he is is much more conservative than Chet. Edited to add: I worked with him on his last 2 campaigns and I do not consider him to be a flake.

[Gman]

4. I sat there and watched and heard Edwards commit to support

our legislation then be visited by some high dollar lobbyists later and he then voted against us. He never even bothered to tell us to our faces that he had changed his position. The legislation we were supporting was top priority for the TX AFL-CIO that year.

Its a good thing that you've had good experiences with him. Personally though, he's a flake and can't be counted on or trusted.

I think another thing that pissed us off was that he was in a particularly tough race the year before and labor helped pull it out for him. This was the thanks we got. This was all probably around 1990 - 1991 or so.

[liveoaktx]

5. I want a Democrat to stand up for Dem values-there are

a lot of bills that I wouldn't care if they were voted on one way or the other, but some provisions of the Patriot Act, including the one today, have to get voted out. This is a make or break issue for me. I've given up on Stenholm, he doesn't ever represent my interests. But I'm disappointed, I expected Chet Edwards to.