|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
AJC Endorsement: Martin best choice for Georgia
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Race
|
| Contributor | COSDem |
| Last Edited | COSDem Oct 15, 2008 10:16am |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | Endorsement |
| News Date | Wednesday, October 15, 2008 04:15:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | In his almost six years in the U.S. Senate, Saxby Chambliss has built a reputation as a loyal defender of President Bush and his policies and as a champion of corporate interests.
The people of Georgia now have to decide whether that’s the senator they want for the next six years as well.
On his seats in the Senate intelligence and armed services committees, Chambliss strongly backed the president’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq and rejected charges that Bush misused intelligence to convince the country to follow his lead. On the Senate Agriculture Committee, Chambliss fought reforms of farm subsidies. In fact, in one of his rare disagreements with Bush, Chambliss fought the president’s efforts to limit government subsidies to the wealthiest of farmers. Unfortunately for taxpayers, Chambliss won that fight, ensuring that income limits for farm subsidies were so high as to be meaningless.
That attitude was most blatantly on display in a Senate committee hearing this summer into the deaths of 13 workers in an explosion at a Savannah sugar plant. A company whistleblower testified to the repeated warnings he had issued to top executives, including explicit written warnings that executives ignored. Rather than laud the whistleblower, as senators of both parties had done, Chambliss questioned his sincerity and integrity and tried to imply that the true villain had been the whistleblower, not his superiors.
To his credit, Chambliss has on occasion tried to slip the leash. He joined a bipartisan effort to craft a humane but effective approach to illegal immigration and more recently took part in a bipartisan Senate effort to find common ground on energy. He also did the responsible thing in voting for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, a step that angered some of his conservative supporters.
Chambliss is being challenged by Democrat Jim Martin, an attorney and former state legislator, and Libertarian Allen Buckley. |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
