"It's always safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things." ~ Sarah Palin

Barrett Gone AWOL

December 18th, 2009 in Congress, Gresham Barrett, South Carolina ~ (2) Comments

barret_gone

The Washington Post did a tally of all the votes in the U.S. House of Representatives to see how many actually voted.

Rep. Gresham Barrett (R, SC-3), in spite of his $174k annual salary, missed 337 out of 971 votes in 2009–about 34.7%. Votes Barrett missed include the vote to reprimand Rep. Joe Wilson for his “You lie!” outburst and a key budget appropriations vote on 12/10 which contained abortion funding.

Shenanigans like this earned another legislator,  Sen. John Edwards of NC, the nickname “Senator Gone.”

Barrett’s excuse? “Serving in Congress while running for governor is a balancing act, and he hopes most people will understand.” In contrast, Tennessee Rep. Zach Wamp (who is running for governor of Tennessee) only missed 8.1% of Congressional votes.

Now, what do you call a soldier who doesn’t show up to battle?

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2 Comments on “Barrett Gone AWOL”

  1. 1 Pilgrim said at 5:20 am on December 19th, 2009:

    I'd call him unfit to wear the uniform, traitor, or possibly even coward.

  2. 2 Non-Standard Politics » Blog Archive » Is Gresham Barrett a worthy Gubernatorial candidate? said at 10:27 pm on January 14th, 2010:

    [...] very controversial townhalls.) Or is he too busy campaigning? I dare say the latter, since he also missed 337 out of 971 house votes in 2009 (34.7%). I’m not paying him $174k/yr to miss one third of the votes. I know [...]

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