A congressman who justifies every vote on Facebook
"I voted no on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H R 297, Children's Hospital GME Support Reauthorization Act of 2013, which reauthorizes federal payments to children's hospitals for operating graduate medical training programs... The bill passed 352-50."<p>"I voted no on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H R 225, National Pediatric Research Network Act of 2013, which expands the existing Pediatric Research Initiative (PRI) to include a new National Pediatric Research Network... It passed 375-27."<p>"I voted no on H R 325, No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013...
The bill passed 285-144."<p>"I voted no on H R 152, Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013... The bill passed 241-180."<p>Justin Amash represents a wing of the Republican party that has essentially decided to refuse to <i>govern,</i> and is content to simply object to anything Congress tries to do that is not ideologically pure, which is pretty much everything.<p>[EDIT: To those who commented below upset with my "refusal to govern" comment -- look, governing requires solving problems that the public wants you to solve.  That solution can even be essentially <i>less government.</i><p>For example... a lot of Republican voters don't like Obamacare, but I doubt many of them liked our pre-Obamacare healthcare system.  Take an extreme, free-market/libertarian form of healthcare policy -- repeal not just Obamacare, but things like the employer tax deduction for health insurance, requiring hospitals to provide life-saving care for anyone regardless of payment capability, etc -- I would vehemently disagree with that, but I would consider crafting and trying to pass such legislation an <i>attempt to govern.</i>   But if the bulk of your legislative activity is doing things like voting to repeal Obamacare <i>twenty-three</i> times, as Rep. Justin Amash did in 2011-2012, then I would argue you are just politically pandering to your constituent base -- or worse, your campaign's financial donors -- and not governing.]<p>On the other hand, I do appreciate his attempts to justify and explain his actions.  This type of transparency is desperately needed in the Senate, where everyone uses arcane procedural rules (e.g. filibusters, "holds," and so forth), as anonymous tools of obstruction pretty much constantly.<p>While I doubt I'll ever agree on any of Rep. Amash's views, I hope that more of our elected representatives continue to use tools like social media not just for campaigning and voter outreach purpose, but for information and transparency in the governing process once they're actually in office..