Pete Olson Votes “No” On Democracy

In last week’s vote on HR 2499, the Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2010, my congressman, Pete Olson, cast another No vote.

Pete Olson voted against the people of Puerto Rico voting in a democratic election. One wonders how he feels about Iraqis and Afghanis voting in democratic elections. Is democracy a bad, bad thing? Is it only for white people?

What’s the deal?

HR 2499 is a bill, passed in the House (223-169) and now in the Senate, that would allow Puerto Rico to conduct a free and democratic election, a referendum actually, asking only this question: Which do you prefer, 1) the status quo in Puerto Rico’s association with the United States, or 2) a different political status?

No, nothing on what that change is. If the Change option wins, then they go to step two in conducting plebiscites every eight years to vote on what sort of change they want: 1) Statehood, 2) form an alliance with the United States that falls outside of the Territorial Clause of the constitution, 3) full independence as a sovereign nation, or 4) status quo – also known as choice one in the first election.

Now what the H-E-Double-Hockey Sticks is wrong with giving Puerto Ricans, already American citizens, the same right to self-determination that we enabled in Iraq and Afghanistan?

It’s not money, is it? Puerto Rico, despite its name, is not very rico.

So it has to be political. Olson is, if anything, predictable. If money is not the issue it has to be all about winning elections.

It has to be about the theoretical millions of poor and middle class people on that island who just might vote Democratic (with a capital D) if they gained statehood and could vote for their own US Senators as well as, perish the thought, the President.

Do you think?

Did Olson vote No because he thinks that Obama is pulling another fast one and stacking the Democratic deck, as it were?

I’m pretty sure that’s why, but I really don’t believe in this magical pool of Democratic voters in Puerto Rico. There is no metric.

This is because the political parties in Puerto Rico are divided along completely different lines than they are here. Basically it is a three-way between the PIP, who want complete independence (with a base that makes Libertarians look like a third party rather than a joke), the PPD a party whose sole issue is to maintain Puerto Rico’s status quo as a commonwealth, and the PNP who want statehood. At 30% the PPD is very probably the most likely to vote Democratic in American elections. The PNP, at 35%, is more problematic as it consists of conservatives and liberals who are united in wanting statehood for their respective reasons.

And 27% who fail to declare a party alliance. Independents, if you will.

So I don’t see it as clearly as Olson does. Puerto Rico is an island full of deeply religious people of conservative values. Frankly, maintaining the status quo has been the result of similar elections going back years and years.

They don’t much like change.

So I think Olson was clearly wrong to vote against a democratic election in Puerto Rico. And I think it was based on unreasoned fear of an enhanced Democratic majority in America.

Where do I stand on statehood for Puerto Rico? As a non-islander I really have no opinion. I just think that they should be free to express theirs in a free democratic election.

OK, yeah, I do have one problem with statehood. It is more aesthetic than political or economic though. Since 1776 the stars and stripes had a star field with some symmetry. Sometimes compromises were made, but on the overall, the arrangements of stars on the American flag has been pleasing to the eye.

But adding one star is going to assault my sense of symmetry. You’re going to have to lose three rows and have 6 alternate rows of 9 and 8 stars each. Ruins the symmetry. It looks squished.

51 is not a prime number, it’s divisible by 3 but I’d hate to see a star field of three rows of 17. That would be really squished.

Alternately we could go back to basics and arrange the stars in a circle.

Hate that, although the 5-sided symmetry appeals, it just looks too much like a sanddollar.

Problems, problems, problems.

So if we are going to add a state, let’s add two. 52 is a good number. That’s 4 rows of 7 stars and 4 rows of 6. And no, let’s not make the 52nd state American Samoa or the Marianas Islands (although they could well-use our child labor laws), let’s split a big populous state.

You choose, Vermont or Massachusetts.

Pete Olson on NASA: All Talk and No Action

After 7 months in office I see that my congressman, Pete Olson (R – TX 22), has a near perfect voting record. Have you seen it? Take a look. It is a near-perfect string of “Nays.”

Want to know how many times Pete Olson has has voted “Nay“? It’s actually easier to count the number of times he has voted “Yea.” And that would be 3 times, twice on the bill that allows loaded handguns in national parks, and once to block the release of federal dollars to fund economic recovery.

Every other time a vote has come up, Pete Olson, my congressman, has voted “Nay” or not bothered to cast a vote at all.

What is amazing to me is that Pete Olson enjoys a singular reality in being the one who represents Texas CD 22: he has the Johnson Space Center within the boundaries of his district.

Pete Olson represents NASA.

And you can believe that Olson makes a lot of hay out of that. No, he doesn’t get a lot of monetary support from NASA engineers. That honor still goes to the sunset industry known as oil and gas. But as the congressman who can rightly claim that he represents NASA engineers and technicians, he heaps upon himself the obligation to wax poetic over NASA in newspapers.

Here he is in the Chron early last month leading the charge to go back to the moon by 2020.

Here he is in the Washington Times, that well-known neocon rag, extolling Apollo 11’s example on the 40^th anniversary of the first ever moon walk.

In the latter he says this:

“Following President Kennedy's stirring speech setting the goal to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth, billions of dollars were pledged and spent; technology that was not even invented at the time had to be perfected; and, sadly, lives were lost in our journey to the moon and back.”

And further on:

“I am greatly worried that the Apollo moon landings may have signaled the end of lunar exploration when they should have been the beginning. There is almost universal agreement how tragic it was that Apollo missions 18 through 20 were cut because of budget constraints. Yet each year, Congress seems to endorse those cuts through failure to fully fund the goals we set for NASA.”

I’ll say.

Here we have, on the one hand, a congressman who seems to be supportive of government spending on a massive scale, on the scale that we spent in the 60’s to land a man on the moon by a drop dead date, and on the other hand, a congressman who “Just says no.”

Pete Olson voted “Nay” last February 25^th for HR 1105, the House Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009.

Among other things, HR 1105 funded NASA to the tune of over $24 billion so it could stay in business until September of 2010.

And Pete Olson, who represents NASA, voted against it.

Pete Olson: all hat, no cattle.