A couple days ago we noted that Nevada Rep. Jon Porter chalked up a Shelly Berkley-like score on the Club for Growth’s “RePORK Card,” having recently voted to strip out only 5 of 50 pork items from various spending bills. This compared to Nevada’s other Republican member of Congress, Dean Heller, who landed a perfect 100% score.
In her “Political Notebook” column on Monday, Las Vegas Review Journal reporter Molly Ball noted our criticism of Porter…along with his office’s “spin” defending him.
“Meanwhile, Carson City conservative activist Chuck Muth headlined an item in his e-mail newsletter on Porter ‘Here Piggy, Piggy, Piggy,’ slamming Porter for scoring 10 percent on a report card put out by the D.C.-based Club for Growth. (Heller scored 100 percent.)
“Muth, whose frustration with Republicans is such that he quit the party earlier this year, said Porter’s unwillingness to vote for attempts to strip funding for ‘wasteful pork projects’ was ‘disappointing’ and ‘embarrassing.’
“Called upon to defend his boss from the opposite flank, the impressively unbeleaguered Leffingwell said the report card was misleading. ‘Congressman Porter has consistently supported tax cuts for Nevada families, voted against the Democrats’ budget and sought to ensure that his constituents retain their Medicare benefits,’ Leffingwell said. ‘To attack Congressman Porter for being fiscally irresponsible is to not consider the entire picture.’”
The notion that the Club for Growth’s RePORK Card is “misleading” led the Club for Growth to respond with a press release today headlined, “Porter’s Score on RePORK Card Speaks for Itself - And it’s Not Pretty.”
“Yesterday, Republican Rep. Jon Porter (NV-3) defended his record of fiscal responsibility despite scoring a pathetic 10% on the Club for Growth’s 2007 RePORK Card. Fiscal responsibility, my foot.
“‘Porter’s staff claimed the RePORK Card is ‘misleading,’ but the Club for Growth’s RePORK Card speaks for itself,’ said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. ‘Either you stand for American taxpayers by voting against pork projects, or you stand for parochial special interests.
“’With a score of 10% on the 2007 RePORK Card, Jon Porter backed up the special interests 90% of the time. Porter also scored a humiliating 26% last year, voting for only 5 of Jeff Flake’s 19 anti-pork amendments. If anything, Jon Porter is sinking further into the pit of fiscal recklessness with each passing year.’
“The RePORK Card documents all fifty anti-pork votes during the 2007 appropriations process. Over the course of this process, Jon Porter voted to keep such outrageous pork projects as:
* $34,000,000 for the Alaska Native Education Equity program and other programs (RC #654, 07/18/07)
* $300,000 for the On Location Entertainment Industry Craft and Technician Training project at West Los Angeles College in Culver City, CA (RC #667, 07/18/07)
* $150,000 for the American Ballet Theatre in New York City for educational activities (RC #668, 07/18/07)
* $150,000 for the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston, S.C. (RC #669, 07/18/07)
* $100,000 for the Kansas Regional Prisons Museum in Lansing, Kansan (RC #670, 07/18/07)
* Bars funding of $2,000,000 for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York in New York City (RC #678, 07/19/07).
* $50,000 for the National Mule and Packers Museum in Woodlake, CA (RC #700, 07/24/07)
Posted on August 14th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
Congressman Porter was re-elected last year by a slim margin. Also, the Politico reported last week that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee views him as one of the more vulnerable Republican Congressional incumbents next year and is already running radio ads against him in his district.
I don’t live in Congressman Porter’s district, so I don’t know if Congressman Porter’s support for pork is based on some kind of twisted principle or on some kind of political expediency. However, it seems that moving left on spending and fiscal responsibility will turn away conservative support (if there’s no Libertarian or Independent American option, the conservatives still have the option to sit it out) and won’t gain anything for him on the left. Of course, if his votes are a reflection of his political principles, then in the words of John Edwards, “Good bye, good riddance.”
John,
Actually, it is none other than Karl Rove who has Jon Porter identified as one of the top 10 “at risk” Republican incumbents!!!!….and that was 2 weeks after the last election!
Porter voted for all the pork for all his buddies because Jon Porter is a get-along-go-along kind of guy. He is not a stick your neck out and do the right thing kind of guy like Flake, or John Adams of Samuel Adams or Paine or Washington or….he’s just another rubber stamp
Southy: If Congressman Porter is “just another rubber stamp,” who’s he a rubber stamp for? Who are the powers, movers and shakers behind what’s been going on in this country for so long? Those are the people we need to find and take out, and I don’t mean that literally, just figuratively.
By the way, I just finished reading “Secrets of the Temple.” Very good book, thank you for the recommendation.
“rubber stamp”…follow the money from the top of the R ticket on down! Politicians are just the hired guns. Now the money pot has to go R and D, but the buyers are the same.
You’re welcome and congratulations on finishing the book.