Middle Tennessee's own Jim Cooper votes with Republicans, against hurricane victims

Nashville's Jim Cooper turns away from Rockaway (NYC)

So, Congress's response to the disaster along the east coast caused by Hurricane Sandy has been late and limping, very much unlike their response to Middle Tennessee in 2010 after our "1,000 year" flood. I fully expected most of the Republicans and maybe a few lunkhead Democrats to kick some recovering northeasterners while they are down.

But take a look at the identity of the only Democrat to vote against relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy:

A very big thing happened last night in the House of Representatives. For the second time this month, Boehner broke the Hastert Rule. The issue was Hurricane Sandy relief, a follow-up vote to a smaller package approved earlier this month. It passed, but the important thing is how it passed:

Yeas: 241 (192 Democrats, 49 Republicans)
Nays: 180 (Rep. Jim Cooper + 179 Republicans)

For his part, Congressman Cooper issued a press release:

Congress should make at least some effort to pay for a portion of disaster relief. I voted for federal aid for Nashville flood recovery in 2010, and that bill was partially paid for. So were the Hurricane Katrina bills I supported. And Hurricane Rita, and Hurricane Wilma, and Hurricane Ivan, and Hurricane Isabel. Why can’t we find even partial offsets for Sandy?

Yesterday’s votes came during a national budget crisis while America is officially out of money.

Jim Cooper is so set on "fixing" Congress and the national debt that he is willing to cast a symbolic vote against the welfare of one-time disaster victims. Okay. So, he got to send his message of fiscal responsibility and dealing with deficits one more time. How is that supposed to help someone whose life has been arbitrarily destroyed by a historic hurricane? Seriously. He cannot make any exceptions in extreme cases to his pay-as-you-go rule?

A couple of years ago, Mr. Cooper went ballistic when the Army Corps of Engineers chose not to produce a report on Nashville's 2010 flooding due to budget considerations. In another press release he said:

This is completely unacceptable. I am stunned the Corps doesn't feel it is necessary to investigate their response to a multi-billion dollar disaster.  The people of Middle Tennessee deserve answers.

This shows a serious lack of accountability and leadership at the Corps.

So, when the Corps makes a decision not to spend money on the Nashville flood follow-up due to budget considerations, it is "unacceptable".  However, Mr. Cooper voting not to support federal aid for stricken eastern seaboard communities based on budget considerations is acceptable. Using budget considerations as a strict rule obviously cuts both ways.

The precedent for federal aid to disaster victims, as he points out, has already been set. Using the budget crisis as an excuse for neglect of nature's latest victims looks like he is treating them as a means to serve his own ends in Washington. Heaven forbid Jim Cooper let human suffering stand in the way of his Blue Dog Beltway axioms.

Localizing President Obama's State of the Union

I listened to Barack Obama's latest SOTU speech last night and thought it was an effectively safe, garden-variety election year SOTU, promising many things to various interests across the spectrum. There are things I wanted to hear but never expected to, which I won't go into here. But given the focus of this blog I was particularly interested in the responses of those audiences focused on urban issues.

The President touched on infrastructure:

In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

One of the first reactions I saw after the speech was done was a statement from the President of the National League of Cities (via their Twitter stream):

In an election year, there is a tendency to put off hard decisions until the politcial climate is settled. But the American people and American cities cannot wait until next year for action. The economy has yet to recover, the middle class continues to shrink and Washington continues to play political gamesmanship.

"Congress and the Administration need to take a page from the nation's local leaders who are making very difficult economic choices everyday. We are glad the President agrees with us that it is time for Washington to work towards finding solutions and making the strategic investments in the infrastructure and human capital the nationneeds to remain competitive for decades to come.

“To everyone in Washington we say: Campaign on your record and not with people’s lives. It’s time to get to work.”

While NLC spread the responsibility for realizing high-minded talk about infrastructure around, the interest group representing the nation's Mayors laid most of the blame on Congress and gave the White House a pass.
Here is most of last night's statement by the U.S. Conference of Mayors President, who is also the Mayor of Los Angeles:

"Last week, nearly 250 mayors gathered in Washington, D.C. We conferred with President Obama at the White House and released a detailed report on the state of the cities.

"The report was clear. Nearly a fourth of the nation’s metropolitan areas – including my home of Los Angeles – will struggle for five more years to regain the jobs lost in the Great Recession.

"In his address tonight, President Obama showed the country that he will keep fighting for the investments we need to turn our economy around. At its heart, the speech was about renewing the basic bargain with the American middle class, especially those looking for work or struggling to pay their mortgage.

"Now it’s Congress’ turn. Congress needs to do its job.

"To put America back to work, Congress should start by passing the Boxer-Inhofe surface ransportation bill, a bill that includes the innovative America Fast Forward initiative.

"America Fast Forward is simple. It would accelerate the construction of locally-funded road and rail projects by providing flexible, low-interest loans from the federal government....

"Our cities cannot afford another season of congressional inaction."

The USCM response looked like it was written to compliment the President's speech, which also chided congressional inaction. It did not indicate that Obama could have addressed urban infrastructure more than he did. The Mayors may not have wanted to alienate the White House, while the League of Cities feels freer to stand for infrastructure on principal. Targeting Congress, which is less popular than communism, is safe right now primarily because they are so ineffectual.

But at least one commentator senses that Obama is not prepared to be bold on infrastructure either. The thoughts of a blogging urbanist came across my news reader early this morning:

The contributions of the Obama Administration to the investment in improved transportation alternatives have been significant, but it was clear from the President’s State of the Union address last night that 2012 will be a year of diminished expectations in the face of a general election and a tough Congressional opposition.

Mr. Obama’s address, whatever its merits from a populist perspective, nonetheless failed to propose dramatic reforms to encourage new spending on transportation projects, in contrast to previous years. While the Administration has in some ways radically reformed the way Washington goes about selecting capital improvements, bringing a new emphasis on livability and underdeveloped modes like high-speed rail, there was little indication in the speech of an effort to expand such policy choices. All that we heard was a rather meek suggestion to transform a part of the money made available from the pullout from the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts — a sort of war dividend whose size is undefined ....

In the context of the presidential race, Mr. Obama’s decision not to continue his previously strong advocacy of more and more transportation funding suggests that the campaign sees the issue as politically irrelevant.

So, we are back to my first point that the speech was effectively safe, garden-variety SOTU focused less on what Obama will do for urban community and more on how he will navigate his re-election year. Those of us who live in cities will have to wager on the long odds that Congress will actually do something before November without the help of the White House.

Jim Cooper and the bloggers

`I'll start at the end of Jim Cooper's meeting with a handful of local bloggers at Bongo Java Saturday. As Rep. Cooper wound up the meeting and left I hailed his communications director, Katie Hill, to follow up with questions I did not get a chance to ask.

I referred her attention to this week's Nashville Scene interview with her boss where he responded to the Scene's questions about the long awaited federal court house by criticizing the line-jumping that more influential Congressmembers did to get their projects through. I offered the feedback that inside moves that members made to check and out-maneuver one another is really not an issue of principal. Whether Nashville moves up or down in consideration is really an inside-baseball issue and that many voters expect our elected representatives to make the inside moves we cannot make to give us more of an advantage.

Rep. Cooper had already told our klatch that he wanted to return to a Congressional era in the past less dictated by ensconced Congressmembers pulling strings behind the scenes. I asked Katie rhetorically what era he meant, given that the DC of Jim Wright, Tip O'Neill, and LBJ seemed focused on back-room arm-twisting and influence.

Rep. Cooper had already told us that he considered high-visibility and independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to be ineffective on Capitol Hill. Right after he said that I chimed in that many in the Occupy movement referred to Sen. Sanders as effective at bringing more national attention to their cause. During my exchange with Katie, I suggested that some might consider Rep. Cooper's principled stand on the fight for infrastructure for their states and districts as ineffective. I was thinking in terms of the "Chicago Way": you don't bring a knife to a gun fight. I reiterated to Katie that these internal matches are not moral questions and to make them such might be considered "ineffective" by some who want to see infrastructure. However, I added, the issue of indefinite detention is a moral question.

Rep. Cooper had already responded to my question of whether he would support legislation to take indefinite detention out of the 2012 defense authorization bill by not really answering whether he would support it. He called indefinite detention a "murky, presidential powers/Supreme Court issue". He continued: "the current law on that is that if they are a proven terrorist or there are a lot of factors here that then they can be detained, but it is infinitely worrisome anytime it is a citizen." I would put it more strongly: it's not just worrisome, it's an absolute violation of basic human rights. Rep. Cooper called this a "gray area", and he argued that Congress has failed to make sense of this 'murky area". He mentioned the drone attack on Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen on foreign soil. He seemed to suggest that we have been down the rabbit hole since World War II. However, he also insisted that President Obama is trying to get us away from this by winding down the war in Iraq. I did not get how this connected with defending the rights of citizens who are more likely to be indefinitely detained, who are more likely to disappear under this act.

Rep. Cooper had already given the Occupy movement its due after I posed the question as to whether their focus on jobs and wealth distribution was a diversion from the focus on the budget deficit. He handled the pitch ably. He responded that Occupy "balanced the debate". He tied his priority of "getting the budgets right" with helping people, and he emphasized that solving the budget deficit is consistent with the radical democracy of Occupy Wall Street. Rep. Cooper indicated that the deficit numbers are only important if they help or hurt the common people. But he did not address the question of how banks and other powerful finance interests were hurting people, only how Congress's lack of accountability was hurting people.

And that gets me back to a question that I raised with Katie after our time ran out with Rep. Cooper: there are larger moral issues here than the internal mechanism of Congress. The moral issues involve even more of a clear ethical distinction regarding indefinite detention or wealth disparity than they do regarding the privilege of congressional pecking order. If there ever was a time when Congress worked equitably, it was not just a matter of the internal clockwork. It was also due to a healthier, more progressive democracy outside.

In my opinion Jim Cooper should do whatever it takes to bring home the bacon to his district, but he should also focus more broadly on larger civil rights and economic challenge that have brought American democracy to a watershed. That is what I tried to convey to Katie before I left on Saturday.

CM Gilmore compares local Greyhound relocation critics to indecorous heckler, blames MDHA, MCCC for lack of transparency

In a Friday opinion column in the Tennessean, CM Erica Gilmore responded to those constituents who have been critical of the Greyhound bus terminal relocation and the seeming lack of transparency in zoning approval and in the lease signed with the Convention Center Authority. The first thing that leaps out at me about her self-defense is her comparison of the more expressive of her own constituents to Republican U.S. Congress member Joe "You Lie" Wilson:

“You lie” are the words that rang out in our nation’s capital this year as a member of the House of Representatives heckled the president during his address to Congress. Epithets were spit on several of our representatives and senators during the passing of the health-care reform bill. Need less to say, distrust is at an all-time high while civility is at an all-time low.

So in an environment where everyone is looking for someone to blame, about two weeks ago I received a barrage of calls and e-mails sharing every type of sentiment under the sun about the relocation of the Greyhound bus terminal.

CM Gilmore starts off with patent exaggerations about the blow back Metro is getting over this relocation. Everyone is not looking for someone to blame. Overgeneralizing about legitimate concerns, questions, and comments Ms. Gilmore should listen to as an elected official will not satisfy people who feel excluded from power moves affecting their community.

Ms. Gilmore herself has sent mixed messages to alarmed constituents on what she knew when. In a May 22 letter, Ms. Gilmore told neighbors that while there was some confusing back-and-forth over whether Greyhound was going to move to Charlotte and 11th, she did have prior knowledge. That letter seemed to be written with a air of reassurance rather than defensiveness.

However, in Friday's column she refers to her prior knowledge as based on something more fleeting and cursory, a "mention in passing." Results that were a "little unclear" to Ms. Gilmore on May 22 became "shocking" the day-before yesterday, and the opinion piece seems self-defensive. In spite of her own indictments of relocation critics as blamers, she herself points the finger of blame for the artful, finessed decision at other parties: "MDHA, Music City Center Coalition [Authority?], and Greyhound."

But Erica Gilmore was not delivering the State of the Union as the American President when she drew community ire for not doing more, and relocation critics are not indecorous hecklers like Joe Wilson shouting in public that she is a liar. As an elected official she should be held accountable when Metro seals deals in her district, under her watch. And she should not try to confuse public accountability with coarse incivility. Her opinion piece is ironically disparaging toward constituents at this point.

Finally, she falsely insists that the only challenge with Greyhound is whether they keep their word that the lease is only temporary. There are a host of challenges beyond that, but let us assume for a second that every challenge with relocating to Charlotte and 11th is met and dealt with satisfactorily. There still remains one more test to pass: if they used the Downtown Code once to relocate temporarily, will they use it again to relocate permanently, perhaps farther north on Jefferson Street, closer to neighborhoods like Germantown and Salemtown? CM Gilmore has a long way to go to convince us that she is on top of affairs like this surely and critically enough to appreciate the risks to our neighborhoods.

Banking reform would make for a wonderful life

Via Facing South:

Another Study Finds Public Radio Ignores Local News

Via Radio Survivor:

local news coverage remains underfunded, understaffed, and a low priority at most public radio and television stations, whose leaders have been unable to make—or [who are] uninterested in making—the case for investment in local news to donors and Congress

They also note in this study that commercial stations aren't much better at covering local news.

Democrats Blow Another Lead

The Democratic Party seems to be once again attempting to earn the title of "surrender monkeys." Look at what they've squandered:

Americans are extremely displeased with Congress, and there are already some signs that this could take a toll on the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections. Currently, 37% express a favorable opinion of Congress, while 52% hold an unfavorable view. Positive opinions of Congress have declined by 13 points since April and now are at their lowest point in more than two decades of Pew Research Center surveys.

At the same time, intentions to vote Democratic in the next midterm election are markedly lower than they have been over the past four years. Voters are about evenly divided when asked how they would vote if the election for Congress were being held today: 45% say they would vote for a Democratic candidate in their district, or lean Democratic, while 44% say they would vote for a Republican or lean Republican. At about this point four years ago, Democrats led in the generic congressional ballot by 52% to 40% and went on to win a majority of the popular vote and regain control of Congress the following November.

It would be one thing to pass bold legislation that was a little daunting, and then to experience a drop in ratings. It is quite something else to conduct business as usual, make little change, and then watch favorables plummet. But Democrats have turned ineptitude into an art form.

Jim Cooper, Thelma Harper, Mary Pruitt to Meet with District 17 Constituents at Church of Scientology

From the District 17 e-mail list:

U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper, State Senator Thelma Harper and State Representative Mary Pruitt will speak and answer questions at the District 17 “Second Saturday” breakfast, Saturday, July 11, 8-9:30 am.

The long-running breakfast roundtable will be held at the Church of Scientology in the newly-renovated, historic, 1898 Fall School building, 1130 8th Avenue South, at the corner of 8^th Ave. South and Chestnut St..

Dist. 17 Council Lady Sandra Moore, the meeting facilitator, said the legislators were invited in response to constituents' questions about the legislative sessions, especially health care.

A contribution of $5 at the door will be requested for a cafeteria-style breakfast catered by the church.

Enter the parking area behind the church from Chestnut Street. Handicapped access with an elevator to the main floor is located around the corner of the building on the north side (towards downtown). .

The Church of Scientology purchased the 36,000 square foot Fall School building along with adjacent properties at 1112 and 1114 8^th Ave. South last year. This continues the church’s practice of buying and restoring historic properties for use as churches around the country.

The District 17 informational breakfast meetings are usually scheduled for the second Saturdays (except during June and December). The informal, non-partisan forums are for neighborhood leaders and residents from all corners of the district to network with each other and public officials. Dist. 17 ranges from I-40 south to Sevier Park, Berry Hill and Trevecca University.

For more information: Please call the breakfasts sponsor, District 17 Council Lady Sandra V. Moore, 386-9246, or Church of Scientology officials, Rev. Brian Fesler or Julie Forney, 687-4600.

No word on whether any Operating Thetans will be conducting audits during the meeting, but let's hope it doesn't turn into Battlefield Earth.

Audit Concludes TVA Exercised Preferential Option for the Wealthy

The Tennessee Valley Authority gave a few wealthy and influential people greater access to shorelines to dock their big boats than they gave the masses.

One of those wealthy and influential individuals was Heath Shuler, who could also pull some strings on a congressional subcommittee that oversees TVA:

an entity with ties to Shuler - a former University of Tennessee football star and Washington Redskins quarterback - received approval for a transaction that provided 145 feet of water-access rights along the shoreline of Watts Bar Reservoir in Roane County.

That entity, The Cove at Blackberry Ridge LLC, agreed to relinquish 150 feet of water-access rights in Rhea County and also provide about $15,000 for a bank stabilization project at a different location on Watts Bar Reservoir.

Investors in The Cove at Blackberry Ridge included Shuler, who was formerly a member of the House transportation committee's Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. That subcommittee is one of two congressional panels that provide formal oversight of TVA.

TVA may be giving the rich and famous special treatment, but they're giving the poor the shaft.

Cooper Bucks the Blue Dogs?

From Mark Naccarato at Change that Works:

I have some REALLY big local news in the healthcare debate that happened over the weekend to tell you about.

Last Thursday, the Blue Dog Caucus (which includes Reps Cooper, Tanner, Gordon, and Davis) put out a statement that they would be against a public option plan unless it had a "trigger". I've attached some information on what the public option actually is and what the Blue Dogs said about a trigger. Suffice it to say, what the Blue Dogs said isn't surprising since many believe that the trigger is designed to give cover to conservative Democrats to vote for the President's plan while still staying in the good graces of their donors in the insurance, pharma, and healthcare industries.

What IS surprising is that Rep. Jim Cooper - at an OFA meeting at the TNDP headquarters in Nashville on Saturday - said that his "preferred position is to support Senator Chuck Schumer’s plan for the public option which has no trigger in it”. Here's ... Cooper saying it when I caught it all on video:

Let's be clear. If Cooper remains consistent with what he said on Saturday, he would seem to be at odds with the Blue Dog leadership. That's actually consistent with a rumor we are hearing from our DC office - that the Blue Dogs are not united against the public option. Cooper's statement is good news for our cause and it would be great if you could embed or link to this video. We need to make sure that we have Rep. Cooper on the record and that progressives, healthcare advocates (and the other TN Blue Dogs) all know that Cooper is standing with the President's core principles.

Deep Thought

The Salemtown streetscape project is a federally-funded project that may require U.S. Representative Jim Cooper's support if MDHA does not follow through with it as approved (based on nothing but Metro Action's objections) and if we get no help from CM Erica Gilmore or the Mayor's Office.

Blue Dog Becomes Bulldog on Defense Department Delinquencies

Three weeks ago, at a local bloggers meet-up with Tennessee Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper, the subject of applying the same fiscal responsibility to the defense budget that is applied to the domestic budget came up. The Blue Dog gave indications at that event that he was considering dropping that hammer. This week it looks like the hammer is starting to fall.

Bill Theobald gives a blow-by-blow account of Jim Cooper sparring with a Department of Defense executive during a hearing on reforming the Pentagon. I was impressed by how forcefully Mr. Cooper went after the retreating and defensive bureaucrat, and never really let him off the hook. It is a breathless exchange in which Cooper tenaciously cross-examines Pentagon failures and demands that someone take personal responsibility for the mess and malfeasance of defense contracts (including giving one to a couple of inexperienced college kids).

For his part the DoD official refuses to tab any one individual as responsible.  He blames shoddy vehicle maintenance and ill-advised purchases not on personal oversight but on impersonal contracts, "metrics," and procedures. What the official refuses to acknowledge is that reducing personal responsibility to paper rules and requirements does not insure good behavior, but merely defines how bad contractors can be without violating a contract. There are already thousands of pages of regulations on acquisitions, and adding a hundred more won't guarantee that defense contractors will use them responsbility. Their plan to establish an organization to better outsource personal responsibility doesn't see to promising, either. That could effectively leverage and launder more tax dollars for DoD.

Kudos to Congressman Cooper for holding DoD's feet to the fire on this one. Face-to-face accountability and the shame that may accrue are more effective prods to personal responsibility than padding the policy. It would be easy to demagogue critics of irresponsible defense spending as unpatriotic and weak. Democrats need to fight the GOP impulse to excuse everything the Pentagon spends.

The Pride of Williamson County Takes It on the Chin

Al Gore dispenses with Marsha Blackburn handily:

Gone National?

A Politico blog linked this morning's liveblogging event that I sat in on with Blue Dog Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper.

Liveblogging Meet-up w/Blue Dog Jim Cooper

Coop's quote of the morning: "Scariest thing a politician can say is 'I'll be brief'"

Thinks we should have vigorous and open debate on intellectual property issues -- response to Aunt B's question about Google essentially taking over public domain -- Coop advocates coming up with new models rather than thinking in archaic terms about publishing.

Coop says that no one has worked harder for universal health coverage, and they should have allowed a vote on his health plan 10 years ago -- in response to Southern Beale's question about health care coverage -- he says that he has compromised on individual coverage; Obama is right to start on affordability. Propose altering 80-90% of Medicaid program, which would challenge "liberal orthodoxy."

Coop comments that insurance companies compete to get rid of you; under his plan they would not be allowed to get rid of you. Wants to lead with health care to produce some gratitude and support from voters for some reform.

Coop's communications guy, John Spragens, calls the magistrate process in the Nashville justice system a good "choke point" to deter abuses by police who round immigrants up "to send them back to Mexico" without question or due process.

Coop said that Tennessee consumes more energy than any other state and that Nashville has the most energy inefficient homes in the country.

Coop would reform the Tennessee Valley Authority by putting specialists in charge on the board rather than the political appointees that currently populate it.

Coop stopped short of expressing support for Chip Forrester, although he did say that he liked him and that the "circular firing squads" should stop.

Coop is thinking about introducing a plan to limit contributions of defense contractors to members of Congress. Believes that we should attempt to protect defense industry jobs, but believes that financing also influences the congressional armed services decision-making process.

Meet up ended around 9:15, although I stuck around for a little while to chew the fat with Spragens afterwards.

Thanks to Spragens and Rep. Jim Cooper for inviting me to sit in. Coop says that he hopes to have more meet-ups with other local bloggers in the future.

AIG CEO Refuses to Guarantee that He Will Comply with Investigation

Yeah. I'm sure that he really hates to be evasive.

A Decade of Dereliction: Congress May Have Screwed Us All

If you believe that your bank deposits are firmly secured by FDIC, thanks to our neglectful Congress, you may be riding on a false sense of security, according to some shocking news in the Boston Globe:

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits up to $250,000, tried for years to get congressional authority to collect the premiums [from banks] in case of a looming crisis. But Congress believed that the fund was so well-capitalized - and that bank failures were so infrequent - that there was no need to collect the premiums for a decade, according to banking officials and analysts.

Now with 25 banks having failed last year, 17 so far this year, and many more expected in the coming months, the FDIC has proposed large new premiums for banks at the very time when many can least afford to pay. The agency collected $3 billion in the fees last year and has proposed collecting up to $27 billion this year, prompting an outcry from some banks that say it will force them to raise consumer fees and curtail lending.

To possibly reduce the fee increase, the FDIC has asked Congress for the temporary authority to borrow as much as $500 billion from the US Treasury - up from the current $30 billion limit - in case the number of bank failures increases even more dramatically. If Congress approves the measure, to borrow more than $100 billion, the FDIC would still need permission from the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and the White House.

As of Dec. 31, the FDIC had $18.9 billion in its insurance fund - down from $52.4 billion a year earlier - in addition to $22 billion that it has set aside for pending bank failures. The agency has projected it will need $65 billion to take over failed banks through 2013.

But if the FDIC suddenly had to take over a giant bank such as Citigroup or Bank of America, the fund would be drained "in a flash," said Cornelius Hurley, director of the Boston University law school's Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law.

So, all of this recent GOP bravado about letting some banks fail could place an even greater burden on the teetering FDIC, which those same Republicans haven't felt the need to fund in order to provide security for innocent depositors when those banks fail.

Stuffing money in your mattress or burying it in the ground don't look so farfetched now.

Wamp up the Jam

Another Tennessee Republican argues that health care is a privilege; except, of course, when it is a right.

Cooper Promises His Constituents He Will Not Be Seeking Any Projects on Their Behalf Next Year Either

The Tennessean puts it quite simply:

[Jim] Cooper said he will not request projects in the budget for next year.

Mr. Cooper seems more committed to the his Blue Dog coalition than he does to those whom he is supposed to represent in Middle Tennessee.

He already voted against last week's House appropriation to make $51 million in repairs to the seeping and sink-holed Center Hill Dam. If that dam is not repaired it could cause flooding across the Cumberland River Valley, including low-lying parts of Nashville. Almost two years ago I showed how a dam failure could be a major problem for almost all of East Germantown, as well as sections of Germantown and Salemtown neighborhoods.

Why is Mr. Cooper so opposed to domestic spending that could protect the welfare of our neighborhoods?

Was Cooper Spoiling Dems' Attempts to Mitigate the Bush Budget Blows?

Tennessee Blue Dog Jim Cooper was one of 20 Dems joining 178 House Republicans today to vote against post-Bush attempts reinfuse and reinvest in worthwhile domestic programs for:

• Transit
• Public housing
• Development Block Grants for neighborhoods
• Health care
• Education grants