MS-01: To Pick a Wicker Clone Or Not?

SunHerald.com : Election will pick Wicker's replacement


Voters in the !st District in North Mississippi will go to the polls and decide who will replace Wicker since his move to the Senate. Do tell! Will Mississippi send another Repub to Washington or will they try something different this time?

They Did What?

The Mississippi legislature passed a bill that would raise the pay for elected officials. It did eliminate the governor, lt. gov, AG, legislators from receiving the pay raise. But that was not good enough. Why do i say this? What have these people actually accomplished? Mississippi is still in the bottom 10% of states on so many levels. These people have done nothing that would deserve a pay raise.

I say, if they must get a pay raise, then make it contingent on results. If they do not show any results then they get NO pay raise. And it there particular area of expertise shows a decline, then they lose 10% of their existing salary.

Mississippi cannot progress to the future if the elected officials are a drag on the system. This is where the emphasis should be, no progress no salary increase.

US Rep. Gene Taylor

Since this is a blog where I post on the state of Mississippi and its political atmosphere. Since the US Congress is not doing much right now I want to review rep. Gene Taylor's recent record. Why Gene, well he is my rep in Congress and I want to share with my readers what I have learned about his voting. I picked issues that were important to me and I suggest that anyone wanting to grade their rep to do the same.

Health issues:

SCHIP--yes
Ban abortion pill--yes

Labor:

min. wage increase--yes
union bill--no
gay employment bill--no

War:
timeline for war--no

Economy:

economic stimulus--no
US-Peru trade agreement--no
Farm bill--yes
Alternate minimum tax--no

Other legislation:

FISA--yes
Xmas and Christianity bill--yes
Hate Crimes Act--no

There are the bills that were important to me....so how did Taylor do? By my standards, he is mediocre at best. By his vote he has little toleration for gays, or abortion rights. He does seem to stand well on labor, and has taken a stand against civil rights especially with the FISA bill. I will continue to monitor his voting record.

There are others in Washington, but he is the only one that I truly care about. OK we have a Senator Thad Cochran. I would review his record but why, he is boring, unimpressive and a follower and now he is the senior senator from Mississippi, will he he be more verbal now that he cannot hide behinf Lott? We will see.

A Waste Of Time

Year after year after year after..........I have watched the MS legislature and believe me it is a work of absurdity. To begin with when bills are being read and some discussion, if you look over the crowd you will see reps reading newspapers or at worst sleeping. Their only interest is these guys and gals have is self interest.

But the biggest waste of time is that at every meeting they commend somneone or name a highway or such worthless stuff. Personally, there should be a bill or something that will make this type of waste on the last day of the session and it should include all this pandering to one bill with a section for each thing. They vote on this the very last thing and then they leave. But to make a bill for every little thing is just a waste of time and money and needs to be eliminated.