Sunday Discussion Group

November 6, 2005

Several years ago, David Plotz wrote a funny item for Slate about members of Congress from Oklahoma, which he labeled the nation’s worst delegation.

Plotz’s piece is a little dated now, but he raised an entertaining question. This week’s discussion group topic is easy enough: what’s the worst delegation in Congress?

There are, to be sure, some real doozies out there. Easily in the running would be Alabama (Sessions, Aderholt), Georgia (Chambliss, Isakson, Kingston), Idaho (Craig, Crapo, Simpson), Kansas (Brownback, Roberts, Tiahrt), Kentucky (Bunning, McConnell), Mississippi (Lott, Cochran, Pickering), Oklahoma (Coburn, Inhofe, Istook, Cole), Tennessee (Frist, Alexander, Wamp), Texas (DeLay, Hutchison, Cornyn, Barton, Bonilla), and Wyoming (Enzi, Thomas, Cubin). There are others, but those are some of the more offensive ones that jump out at me.

Keep in mind, some states have awful Republican delegations but send some terrific Dems to the Hill (Texas and Georgia, for example).

On balance, which is the worst?

Don’t forget to add Ryun to the Kansas delegation. He was “honored” as the worst member of his Freshman class of Congressman by either Roll Call or the National Journal. I can’t remember the publication right now.

What’s sad is that he hasn’t risen above that rating since he was elected in 1996.

  • It has to be Oklahoma. Outside of Rep. Boren (D-OK), who I like, the rest of those guys are nuts.

  • Wisconsin sends Russ Feingold to the Senate plus Tammy Baldwin to the House — but we also send James Sensenbrenner.

  • As much as I like Congressman Boswell, think Senator Harkin is useful, and even like Republican Representative Leach, the presence of Steve “McCarthy was a hero!” King in the delegation may, all by itself, put Iowa on the list.

  • Cubin is a nightmare, but on policy grounds I move to take Wyoming out of the running–Enzi has been a really good HELP Committee chair. He’s brought a revision of the Higher Education Act out of committee that was a model of bipartisan legislating and passed unanimously. Lots of support for adult and part-time learners, connections of business to colleges, other good stuff.

    I’m sure he’s a typical Republican dickhead on a lot of other issues, but for his good work on an issue near and dear to my heart (and my business) I think he’s out of the running.

    Texas gets my vote. Cornyn’s an ignorant ass, and DeLay is the worst “public servant” of my lifetime, an unbearably toxic force in our public life. Most of the rest of them have some redeeming trait or other–Coburn at least is principled on spending, Brownback occasionally will speak up against genocide, that sort of thing. I know TX has a few strong Reps–Sheila Jackson Lee is pretty badass–but their top people are so terrible that I think it has to be them.

  • Wyoming also gave us V.P. Cheney…does that count?

    I’ll also go with Texas…even if some of their reps are respectable.
    DeLay, Cornyn, Hutchison, etc., may not be a whhole lot worse than Oklahoma or Kansas, but Texas also sent us Bush.

    ’nuff said!

  • I’ll cast my lot with “What’s the matter with” Kansas. Brownback’s insane, Roberts is a pathetic hack, and Ryan and Tiahrt are cut from the same cloth. Runner-up votes go to Wyoming and Oklahoma.

  • Geographically speaking:

    Kansas…Oklahoma…Texas.
    I think the further south you go, the worse it gets.

  • I know this is not the topic, but the flip side is which state has the best delegation: I submit Michigan, with Levin in the Senate, and John Conyers (He ‘da Man!) and John Dingell (the longest currently serving member with over 50 years). There are a few Rethug nuts, but on balance the progressives have an impressive group in Michigan!!

    P.S. It seems that it was Levin who gave Harry Reid a recently declassified document that shows Bush knew his lies about bioweapons were based on a discredited detainee, but went ahead and used the lies anyway as part of his hype to force the war. That document, it seems, is what triggered Reid’s Rule XXI “hijacking” of the Senate last week. And we all know about and respect Conyers and his tireless efforts to hold the thugs accountable. More power to all of them!!

  • Call me crazy, but I have some kind of respect for Coburn. He may be crazy, but at least he sticks by the values of conservatism to a ‘T’. He was the one who tried to get rid of the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’, you have to remember that. I vote Kansas.

  • “The bridge to nowhere” – good point.

    Gotta be Alaska. Two guys and a gal representing a tiny string of wilderness outposts, which happen to sit on an outrageous heap o’ mineral wealth. The profits from which go to everyone in a huge annual dividend, so they don’t have to pay income taxes – very socialist. And then they come to DC and demand that we pay for their development with huge pork projects, and connive in the rape of their previously unspoiled wilderness for yet more dough, and vote to impose turbo-capitalism on the rest of us. And they’re smug and arrogant about it besides. And when one of them goes home to be governor, presumably to be closer to the spigot of swag, he appoints his own frigging daughter to succeed him.

  • Still can’t get that image of Ted Stevens shouting “No!” at Coburn on the Senate floor – No, I won’t give up my bridge, which I extorted from the rest of you chumps fair and square, and Louisiana can go back to swampland for all I care! Bet that played to big applause up in Fairbanks.

  • My reps aren’t as outrageously bad as some of the ones that you guys have mentioned but they still rate pretty low in my book.

    I have Jim “supports torture” Talent, Christopher “also supports torture “ Bond, and of course the new House majority leader Roy Blunt.

    Needless pork projects are one thing, but nothing is more egregious than torture and to support it is unthinkable.

  • Kansas. The Fundies there seem more “true believer”-ish, which is always scarier to me. The slime elsewhere are just in for the cash, and they’ll always be easier to beat.

  • Now I know how tough determing the BCS football standings must be.

    I’d suggest considering Pennsylvania, despite some good people, on the basis of Rick Santorum alone.

  • I agree with marcus alrealius alrightus about Missouri, although he forgot to add my rep, Todd Akin, who succeeded Talent in the House and is probably best known as the main sponsor of the horrible Pledge Protection Act. Man, he really sucks. Missouri’s delegation may not be as openly insane as Oklahoma’s, but we definitely give them a run for their money.

    Behind OK and MO, I’d say Alabama. You mention Sessions and Aderholt (whose district I grew up in when it was represented by the late, great Tom Bevill), but don’t forget Shelby. He may have been a Dem back in the day, but once he made the switch, he really showed his colors. And his leaking of classified information while on the Intelligence Committee — dangerous.

  • I’ll go with Missouri as well. Talent and Bond are such hacks. I always think about the temper tantrum Bond threw over holding the polls open in St. Louis during the 2000 election. He was in such a purple rage he injured his hand because he was pounding the podium so hard.

    I’ll add the name of Rep. Sam Graves to our line up. The bullying and physical intimidation of Democratic opponents on the part of his campaigns have been well-documented locally.

    It’s too bad we can’t add governors … because Matt Blunt (Roy Blunt’s son) has been an unmitigated disaster.

  • Holley – That’s another one to add to the list, but I think that I’ve got it bad enough here in the southwest part of the state. In addition to ones that I listed above we can’t forget about our dear old Republican governor, and in my district my state Congressman Mark Wright(R) and state Senator Roseanne Bentley(R). And of course I’m from the city/town that gave us John Ashcroft (ugh).

    Even though I wasn’t watching politics at the time losing a progressive voice like Mel Carnahan seems like such a tragedy for our state.

  • If you look at the Senate then it is tough to beat Kentucky. Bunning is half a step from senile and good old Mitch is in a league of his own.

  • Yep, the Missourians who I didn’t vote for are pretty much a disastrous bunch. What kills me is way back in the day several decades ago Bond used to sell himself as a moderate Republican. Anyone else remember those days decades ago? The ones citing Kansas don’t note that the state did manage to send one reasonable human being to Washington, Dennis Moore. God’s Own Party tried to kill him off by redistricting to put less of Douglas County/City of Lawrence (location of the University of Kansas) in his district but since the internecine struggle between moderates and hyperconservatives in Kansas still manages to get Moore elected between what’s left of Lawrence in his district and the moderates still voting in Johnson and Wyandotte County.

  • Jim S – Early in the 70’s Bond made a good reputation for himself. My memory isn’t entirely clear but it seems like that he was state auditor at the time and then he became governor, in fact at the time he held that position he was the youngest governor in the country.

    My guess is that he got ahold of GOP koolaid and has gone off his rocker.

  • Oklahoma’s still hard to beat. It’s the only state where BOTH Senators voted for torture. Why Coburn voted for torture is beyond me, since he’s a human lie detector…

    • Comments are closed.