Written by Sarah Jaffe for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Ten Democrats cosponsored H.R.3, even with language redefining rape; four of those ten also apparently don’t care if pregnant women die. Sarah Jaffe takes a closer look at all ten, find all posted to date here.

Meet Daniel Lipinski!  He represents the 3rd Congressional district in Illinois, and has since 2005. He was preceded in that seat by…Bill Lipinski. Yes, that’s his dad. Yay, nepotism!

It gets better. David Bernstein in Chicago magazine calls the story of Lipinski the younger’s ascension “a classic Chicago move.”

He writes: 

His father, William Lipinski, had held the Third Congressional District seat since 1983, but after winning the 2004 primary election William withdrew and then urged Democratic Party leaders to slate Daniel—living in Tennessee at the time—virtually assuring his son’s victory against token Republican opposition.

So his dad not only stepped aside to give his son the seat–he literally won the primary FOR him and then gave him the election. Those of you who’ve lived in a one-party machine city know that when Democrats control all the levers of power, the primaries are the real contest, bloody and vicious as any Democrat vs. Republican contest. But incumbents have a huge advantage that perhaps the son of the incumbent, apparently living in Tennessee, might not have had. 

Bernstein notes also that Lipinski was an aide to infamous Gov. Rod Blagojevich, when Blago was a congressman, and notes that Lipinski the elder was a key early backer of Blago’s run for the governorship. No word on what they think of Blago’s run for reality TV. 

Lipinski is such a gem that he not only cosponsors H.R. 3 but also H.R. 358, the “Let Women Die If Saving Them Might Harm a Theoretical Hair on a Fetus’s Underdeveloped Head” act, and of course H.R. 217, the Pence “Defund Healthcare Providers That Actually Help Prevent Abortions Act” and my favorite Orwellian-named “Abortion Non-Discrimination Act of 2011″ (No, that one’s the REAL name.) He was also the only Illinois Democrat to oppose health care reform, though at least he had the sense not to join the GOP attempt to repeal it. … Read more

Written by Sarah Jaffe for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Ten Democrats cosponsored H.R.3, even with language redefining rape; four of those ten also apparently don’t care if pregnant women die. Sarah Jaffe takes a closer look at all ten, find all posted to date here.

Meet Collin Peterson. He’s from the great state of Minnesota, the one that brought you such great progressives as Paul Wellstone and currently boasts Keith Ellison, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken in its Congressional delegation. Of course, it also has Michele Bachmann.

Collin Peterson is a co-sponsor of H.R. 3 and voted to defund Planned Parenthood and other Title X healthcare providers. 

Peterson’s 7th district is next to Bachmann’s, in the northwestern part of the state, and covers a lot of ground–right up to the Canadian border.  It’s Minnesota’s most rural district, and Peterson’s support reflects that. His support has come largely from the agriculture industries–$804,597 from crop production & processing companies and $489,664 from agricultural services or products. 

Proudly prochoice senator Amy Klobuchar carried Peterson’s district in 2006, though it went mostly to Republican Norm Coleman in 2008. So it’s certainly possible for those voters to support a prochoice candidate, and one would assume that a concern for women’s rights isn’t a completely terrible thing in that part of the state. … Read more

Rep. Mike Ross (source: Wikipedia)

Written by Sarah Jaffe for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Ten Democrats cosponsored H.R.3, even with language redefining rape; four of those ten also apparently don’t care if pregnant women die. Sarah Jaffe takes a closer look at all ten, find all posted to date here.

Last week, the House voted to defund Planned Parenthood–in other words, voted to take the war on people’s health beyond the war on abortion rights and to healthcare for low-income people. Not just women, but everyone who receives their care from Planned Parenthood would be affected by this move.

Ten Democrats joined this vote. You know who they were, right? Shuler, Boren, Costello, Donnelly, Lipinski, Peterson, Rahall, McIntyre and Ross were joined by Silvestre Reyes.  (Critz actually, shockingly, voted no.)

Today, we meet Mike Ross.

Mike Ross is from Arkansas. He’s the Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications, and votes with his party 50 percent of the time, according to OpenCongress. (Those vote percentages should be weighted, because a large majority of votes in Congress are to name post offices and suchlike, things that almost everyone votes for.) He’s also a cosponsor of H.R. 3, H.R. 358, and of a bill to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States.

Ross voted against healthcare reform, voted to repeal healthcare reform, and with his vote to defund Planned Parenthood, has made his standing on healthcare pretty clear, I think. Interesting, then, that the industry that gave him the most this campaign cycle was health professionals, with $163,600.  He got an additional $57,750 from the pharmaceutical industry, and $38,550 from hospitals or nursing homes. The American Hospital Association spent $118,000 on his race this past election cycle, but the Sunlight Foundation doesn’t have data on whether that’s pro or anti Ross.

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Not as big a d**k Joe Donnelly (photo: Wikipedia)

Written by Sarah Jaffe for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Ten Democrats cosponsored H.R.3, even with language redefining rape; four of those ten also apparently don’t care if pregnant women die. Sarah Jaffe takes a closer look at all ten, find all posted to date here.

In the run-up to the 2010 election, Melinda Henneberger at Politics Daily wrote of Joe Donnelly:

Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Donnelly and his Republican challenger in next month’s election, state Rep.Jackie Walorski, have a fair amount in common: Both are pro-gun, pro-life, and oppose climate change legislation, though it’s Donnelly who has been endorsed by the NRA, and he, too, who emphasizes his stand against illegal immigration. Both candidates are running against Nancy Pelosi and on Hoosier values, whatever those might be.

Despite running against his own party and its priorities, Joe Donnelly got $770,760.74 in DCCC expenditures in his race. Not bad, eh? Donnelly’s district was a “red to blue” target in 2006, and so the party kept pouring money in to keep him in it.

Molly McClure is from Donnelly’s district, and she notes that while Indiana as a whole is pretty conservative, it did vote for Obama in 2008–the first time a Democrat had taken the state since 1964 and Barry Goldwater’s epic loss. Obama took South Bend/St. Joseph County in ’08, but much of the rest of the district voted McCain. She notes that the district is heavily Catholic–in addition to Notre Dame, other Catholic schools are prominent in the area.

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