In good conscience

John Merli
Published: October 1, 2008

One of the key political facts of life that separate the House from the Senate in Congress are the brief two-year terms in the larger chamber. While even senators find themselves having to spend much of
their days fundraising for their next election held six years apart, House incumbents are confronted with a new election almost immediately after they won the last one.

And the urgent political fact of life that the next election for Virginia’s House members is only a month away no doubt had something to do with their split vote on this week’s Wall Street financial rescue
debacle. Five of the commonwealth’s 11 House members voted ‘yea’ in the strange, non-partisan vote, including Rep. Tom Davis (R-11), who continues to demonstrate why he should not be voluntarily
leaving his house seat soon. (Not because he voted ‘yes” but because theatrics and political expediency has never been his strong suit.)

I suppose one could argue that Davis, without the specter of another election breathing down his neck, had the freedom to do what his conscience dictated — regardless of the heavily negative barrage of
constituent messages blanketing Capitol Hill in the days leading up to Monday’s close vote. Still, I choose (albeit a bit conveniently) to think that based on his past record, Davis would have voted in favor
of the credit-crunch package anyway, whether or not he was up for re-election.

As he told reporters after this week’s vote, “What alternative do you have at this point? If you don’t vote for this [and] credit dries up, there will be no question who [is] to blame.” But the Virginia delegation
was not without its share of partisan grandstanding, most notably when Rep. Eric Cantor (R-7) held up a text of speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ill-timed partisan remarks she made before the vote and then
blamed the defeat on the remarks. (Let’s hope none of the Virginia delegation was petty enough to vote against the measure purely out of spite for Pelosi.)

To be fair, voting against the rescue plan (if done in all good conscience) was not without some merit, either. Although it is a “bailout” of Main Street as well as Wall Street, the measure didn’t really hold
the greedy mortgage lenders and other culprits directly culpable for their sins. And while it’s easy for John McCain to say “let’s get on with it” and solve the mess, most Americans within and outside
Virginia think they smell a rat here — and guilty rats should be punished like anyone else.

If it’s true the $700 billion bill (which is being fine-tuned for another vote) is more about shoring up bad mortgage-laden assets and easing the credit crunch than about Wall Street greed, that’s the key
message that Congress and the White House failed to successfully convey to the rest of us. A “Wall Street bailout” is one thing; a “re-stimulation package for the severe credit dilemma on Main Street”
that directly affects college and car loans, everyday credit cards and small-business payrolls is a far different animal altogether.

Yet despite a failure to “sell” the deal to consumers, there is little doubt the measure would have passed on Monday if the general election was not being held next month (especially considering the
highest concentration of “nay” votes came from politicians engaged in close races). And ultimately, that underscores the disheartening conclusion that an awful lot of House members knew better. They
were well aware that their well-meaning constituents’ pleas to not “bail out Wall Street” were really irrelevant to this measure. But they voted against it anyway because it was an easy vote, and it just
may have saved their seats.

I’m not sure which term best suits Capitol Hill this week, but “leadership” surely is not one of them. It’s one thing to represent the wishes of one’s congressional district and if someone voted “nay” in good
conscience, so be it. But it’s very much something else for an elected official to knowingly allow an overly simplistic (or downright inaccurate) interpretation of a bill by a thundering herd of constituents to
dictate his vote simply for the sake of political expediency over sound judgment.

John Merli has been a Potomac News columnist since 1985. E-mail him at .