Hamsher: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, semifinalist, Member Who Just Won’t “Walk the Talk" contest

Ever since the Democrats took over Congress, it's been one excuse after another as to why nothing but corporate-friendly, anti-progressive legislation gets passed.
We couldn't end the war because we didn't have "60 votes" (which they knew was bullshit, as Paul Kanjorski admits in the video).

We had to add $200 billion in tax cuts to the supplemental to make Chuck Grassley happy even though he wouldn't vote for it.
And despite the fact that 90 Democrats signed a letter in 2007 saying they would vote for no war funding that didn't include troop withdrawals, only 32 would abide by that promise when it actually mattered -- just under the magic 40 needed to block it.

Now when the Republicans are threatening to vote for single payer and it actually stands a chance of passing, members like Joe Baca, Eddie Bernice Johnson, David Scott and Charles Rangel who have cosponsored H.R. 676 in the past say they will not even vote for it. Andre Carson, Linda and Loretta Sanchez, Betty Sutton and Jim Moran won't commit.

Gotta get under that magic 40 somehow.

As Raul Grijalva said, "I understand the intentions; they're good, but now I think the American people want results."

So, we're not going to kick the football this time and say "well, we love you because you're the one who gets to show up on another issue near and dear to our hearts in numbers insufficient to actually do anything about it, while somebody else ducks their head." Because until we say "nobody leaves the building," we will keep losing on everything.

So we announced a contest. Slinkerwink held the first round over at Kos, but unfortunately there is a crowd of people who weren't interested in making progressives walk the walk as well as talk the talk, and they took it out on Slinkerwink personally. Since that is not in any way productive to the effort, or fair to her, we are going to have the semifinals and finals at FDL and welcome anyone who enjoyed taking part in the effort to continue doing so here.

So, without further ado, our Day I Semifinalists:

Debbie is also in a D+13 district (which means a safe Democratic district with a 13-point advantage over a Republican opponent). But she has leadership ambitions, and those aren't cheap. She says she is working for a public plan but that she's "not someone who draws lines in the sand." Good DLCer that she is, drawing "lines in the sand" is something she reserves for controlling the budget.

Her donations from health care interests are $34,000 this cycle, but she's got some heavy hitters. She's taken money from the PACS of DaVita, Humana, Amgen, GlaxoXmithKlein and Johnson & Johnson, and her personal supporters seem to be big on choosing lobbying as a career. She's taken contributions from Kelly Bingel, David R. Thomas and Dan Castagnetti from the Mehlman, Vogel and Castagnetti firm, who all represent AHIP. And also $1000 from Karen Ignani personally, the brain trust behind AHIP who helpfully conceived of the blueprint for the Baucus bill.

It will be interesting if Debbie's lack of "lines in the sand" allow her to scurry over to the AHIP Baucus bill and vote for it if it comes down to it. Will her need to "get something passed" coincidentally allow her to do the very thing that her lobbyist donors want her to? What a win-win that would be.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, also voted for the amendment but said ACORN was being maligned through the actions of some bad employees (who have been fired or suspended).

"I don't think that a couple of people getting sabotaged by right-wing conservatives with cameras means that type of conduct is pervasive through the whole organization," she said. "The organization overall has done a lot of good."

Florida Democrats voting no included Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa, Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville and Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton.

The winner will get:

* A dedicated landing page collecting all of the crowd sourced information about their relationships with lobbyists and their voting history
* Educational calls into every Democratic household in the district letting them know the member won't take a stand to defend the public option
* Post cards to every Democratic home in the district, directing them to the website and letting them know the member's history with lobbying interests
* An automated call-in number for people (seniors) who can't login to the website

Despite all the noise in the Senate, the only true firewall that will keep a bill from passing without a public plan is a 40 vote block in the House. It's wrong for these members to go around trumpeting their support for a public plan and then throwing off all the political consequences on Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Maxine Waters and others when it comes to actually fighting for one.

Whose district needs to know that their rhetoric just isn't matching up with their actions?