Ah you are a lucky constituent, Lis - Nita Lowey sounds awesome - you should tell her to keep up the Q&A format and not just once a year.........all of them should do that - keep in touch with the voters and LISTEN!!!!!

I am two out of three right now.

Senator Bennett... on board for town hall meetings... I tend to at least get response to what I inquire about.

Rep. Jared Polis... totally on board for live town board meetings tends to respond appropriately.

Senator Udall...not so great... I was suprised. But he seems to have gone through some stepford programming in the senate. He actually sent me bs about why the voted against the funding to close GITMO to which I responded 'don't insult me with your BS'. I am still waiting for this guy to get on board. Something has gone wrong with this guy... may need deprogramming.

ok lisB here's what I got,one El Grande Tejas deal for you.I offer one Repub Gov Prick Perry whos got a pretty head of hair but nothing under it, likes to go out of bounds, and threaten to succeede the team,he is slightly used. Then I have one enormous cowboy hat under which hides a pair of ostrich cowboy boots. In between is a white haired,Repub Senator named Cornyn. Now this is the guy who John McCain cussed out (thats worth something), but hey it's the hat and boots Im pushing here, you can send the Senator back to his owners at Exelon. Last I have a repub rep named Poindexter Sessions who had the distinction of being chosen as one of "The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress." Pretty impressive huh? He's as talented as a parakeet and can repeat anything you say, over and over and over."wise Latina women, Wise Latina women, Wise Latina women" is one of his favorites.Ok this here offer is final
so you take you keep.This is my offer, all of these yeehah's(package deal only)for your one little teeny tiny Nita Lowey? What say? No? Ok I will throw in next elections republican 1st round draft choice? Por favor ...?

Lowey has been a solid member of Congress for some time. You are fortunate to have her representing you. She too, is fortunate, to have you.

My local rep Rob A is a pony-tailed, ex-Seattle globalization protestor, big on Green issues, originally went to college in the MidWest on a pitching scholarship. He's a great local organizer, and responds fast - usually by coming to your door.

In the primary, he beat out a lesbian health activist - Jennifer H - who was raised in a trailer park, and born disabled (missing fingers, shorter leg, etc.) She moved to the next seat over, won and is likely our next Heath Minister. She's brilliant, tough and funny as hell.

My Federal rep Pat M is a carpenter, who has introduced legislation to ban trans fats, create a Dept of Peace, ban lawn pesticides, reduce bank fees, and he tears into the corporations about every other week.

So on my scoreboard, that's one great, and two really good.

Just found this site and your blog. Love it! Nita Lowery should be the norm.

Look forward to reading more.

I'm in IL-13 and our congresswoman is Judy Biggert. As I understand it she's an heiress to both the Borg Warner and Walgreens fortunes such as they are. Her middle name is actually Borg. I've never gone beyond the House financial forms to try to find out what kind of pile she's actually sitting on, but suffice it say she has more than $5 million personally and lives in one of the toniest suburbs we have.

Her only saving grace is she beat slimy Peter Roskam in the open seat primary back in 1998.

Over her house career she's gotten millions in campaign contributions from the powers that be in the healthcare industry. She has a daughter who is a pharma company lobbyist. At a recent meeting in her office she listened politely to a woman who has acquired a horrible disease called Common Variable Immuno Disease. Simply put in 2001 her immune system stopped making antibodies to a whole host of infections. She needs $40,000 worth of drugs annually to keep her alive. The company she worked for closed last year. She can't find a job and even if she does they won't insure her cuz she has the mother of all pre-existing conditions. She's on her husband's insurance and god help them if he loses his job. They paid $13,000 out of pocket last year and this year paid their $5000 deductable up front. At which point Biggert asked what their monthly payments are. When Pam answered $147 Judy brightened up and said "I pay $347 a month!" as if Pam's getting a bargain. Pam's husband makes $21,000 a year. They've about exhausted their savings. If Tony loses his job, and his boss has already bankrupted one company, they're both uninsurable under the current system and I don't know what they'd do. This is a woman who road her bike 80 miles a week, eats right, takes care of herself and was in the prime of her life when she was afflicted. When she almost died back in late 2001 the doctors got together and after figuring out she didn't have anthrax decided in a last ditch effort they had to give her max dosages of everything they had. If she wasn't in such good shape her heart would have exploded. She and Tony are barely hanging in, hoping this bill gets passed and Biggert thinks they're lucky duckies when they pay almost half their annual income in January for health insurance.

Judy's 73 years old, has been on the financial services committee for 10 years and yet seems to have learned nothing about how Wall St. works. She simply mouths platitudes that are cut and pasted from dishonest rightwing think tanks. That left her in a real bind last fall when she did a joint interview with her challenger on the local PBS station. When asked for solutions to the Wall St. meltdown and credit market freeze she started blathering some non sequitar about tax cuts and froze up, I guess realizing how totally off base she was, and had to be rescued by the host who said "let's move along" after about a 20 second deer in the headlights delay.

We're going to retire her next year and elect Scott Harper. I met Scott at Yearly Kos in 2007 and helped recruit him to run against him last year. Starting from scratch with no name recognition and no organization he raised over a million dollars and ran a good race. The most any of Biggert's Dem challengers ever raised before was $70,000. The DCCC was so impressed they're backing him this time. The NRCC was so mortified they're now backing Biggert. Scott has a masters in Finance from the University of Chicago. He and a partner started a small internet marketing business in the 1990s and he sold out his share and went to Oxford to study for his PhD in social ethics. When I met him he was on summer break, scheduled to go back to England in September 2007 and finish his thesis by Xmas. We convinced him the most ethical thing to do was to put that on hold and challenge Biggert for her seat.

He is now raising money for his run next year, teaching classes in business ethics at North Central College in Naperville (another place you might look for cheap dorm rooms next summer Lis. It's about half an hour to the city by train which is a few blocks away. It's in the heart of Naperville which has more restaurants and shopping than you can shake a stick at, and couple blocks west is giant muni swimming pool built by the WPA from a quarry), He's put together a consortium to build and sell solar panel installations in Rawanda. He says their new president wants to be the FDR of his country. Oh and he's marrying Jan Schakowsky's hairdresser in September. Who knew Jan was a Shadchen?

We may have a rep who has all the heart, soul and independent thinking of the borg but we're gonna change that.

I recall being disappointed when Rep. Lowey elected not to run for the Senate in 2000 as part of the field-clearing for HRC.

It occurred to me that New York could have done much worse than having Lowey occupying RFK's old seat. Nothing in the intervening nine years has caused me to change my opinion on her.

(Note: Not bagging on HRC at *all*. But I think Nita Lowey is one of the few Congresscritters who actually makes a concerted effort to hear from constituents.)

As for my peeps:

I got a form letter from Bob Casey when I wrote to him asking about not voting to keep Lieberman in the Dem caucus.

I have actually gotten consistent replies from Arlen Specter - even before the switch.

Tim Murphy sends out a newsletter every quarter or so. I certainly wouldn't mind replacing him, but I have a strong suspicion he's going to hold his seat for a while.