Figuring out Nye and Perriello
By JR Hoeft | Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | PoliticsFreshmen congressmen Glenn Nye (D-2) and Tom Perriello (D-5) both defeated incumbent Republicans in 2008, but are high on the national target list by the GOP in 2010.
Both have made themselves vulnerable, but in different ways, for the coming election.
In a nutshell, Nye has nearly cast himself as a continuation of Republican policy. Some might call him “Republican Lite”, but on major votes regarding the budget, cap-and-trade, and health care, he has bucked both the administration and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, convincing some liberal special interest groups that there is nothing “Lite” about him at all, weakening his position with the base. On the other hand, Perriello has towed the party line, with one notable exception: the budget, citing earmark reform and transparency as cause for his opposition. However, he voted for the National Energy Tax and the government take-over of health care, appeasing the liberati of his Charlottesville base, but flying directly in the face of his conservative constituency.
First, check out the votes on these bills:
For the budget, passage was 233-196 (3 NV).
For Waxman-Markey, passage was 219-212 (3 NV).
And, finally, on health care, passage was 220-215.
Democrats currently hold a 258-177 majority.
This means that Speaker Pelosi has 40 votes she can allow to go “off the reservation” at any one time, and still have enough votes to ensure final passage of any major bill.
When you look at these bills, you see both the controversial votes (new legislation) have “just enough” in terms of passage.
So, the question becomes, why did Nye vote against the bills and Perriello vote for them?
In the 2009 General Election, Bob McDonnell won the second district 62-38% and the fifth district 61-39%, Bill Bolling 56-44 and 60-40, and Ken Cuccinelli 60-40 and 62-38.
What’s telling in those results is that the fifth voted more conservative in the down-ticket races. In other words, as the candidates became slightly less well known, the majority in the fifth preferred more conservative policies.
So why is it that Perriello is the more liberal of the two congressman? Quite frankly, I have no idea. His votes seem to indicate he’s only interested in serving one term.
If you were to tell me that between Nye and Perriello, one would have voted three times with the Republicans on all the major legislation of 2009, I certainly would have not picked Nye.
Nye, who represents the Eastern Shore, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach, is expected to be a bit more moderate (dare I say even “forgiven”). Instead, he’s been consistently conservative. Why is he voting to the right? His votes are begging him to be engaged in a primary. Some have even speculated that this is part of concerted effort by Rep. Eric Cantor to get Nye to defect. But all it really seems to have done is tick-off his base.
So, it’s an interesting dichotomy that sets up the GOP quite nicely going into 2010. Nye has eroded his foundation and Perriello has slapped his broader constituency in the face.
Can’t wait for 2010!
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Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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11 Responses to "Figuring out Nye and Perriello"
There are two more to add to the list – Boucher and Connelly. McDonnell and the state ticket won both of those going away as well. Connelly has gone hard left and been none to polite to his constituants of late, at least that is what rumor says. Boucher is in coal country and even though he voted no on some of this stuff, it is his party that passed it. The GOP needs to field strong canddiates in all of these races, and it just might take back the congressional delegation.
There is no way you could say Nye has been voting conservative by just picking out three bills out of more than 300 votes cast. Yes, they are high profile, but its the little bills passed by Congress that crush the American economy too. He did vote for the $787 billion stimulus bill and there are procedural votes cast almost everyday where Nye sides with the Dems. Besides, a NO vote on the budget is totally meaningless – its a resolution – a sense of Congress, it is nonbinding and does not carry the weight of law. Congress can disregaqrd it whenever they want to.
These votes of Nye’s are calculated risks on his part. The toughest election of his life will be 2010. He’s gambling that appealing to moderate independents is more important than upsetting a small liberal base.
[...] From JR Hoeft at Bearing Drift: [...]
The most comical part about all this is that if Nye was actually weighing the bills on their merits and listening to his constituency the votes would be the same. Apparently doing the right doesn’t matter anymore, all the matters is doing the right thing politically. At the end of the day he made the right decisions on those bills, he might have made wrong votes elsewhere, but that is what he was elected to do. If there was a huge demonstration against a bill and he caved in, then we would say he has no backbone, despite the fact that he was acting on the wishes of the people he represents. Truly hilarious that society has degraded this far, but depressing at the same time.
Washington Post says that Nye votes with the Democrats 84% of the time, Perriello 90% of the time. It’s clear that Perriello thinks he can win reelection by energizing the liberal base. That could work if he’s up against Rob Hurt–his vote to raise taxes under Warner will haunt him and depress conservative turnout. A true conservative can defeat Perriello. But I don’t think Perriello’s a total idiot, his vote to prevent federal funding of abortion in the health care bill was smart politics. Nye’s vote to allow for federal funding may be his own big mistake so far.
I’m not entirely convinced Pelosi has a problem with having Moderate Republicans replace these Blue Dogs. Even she only get 220 votes, but every Democrats holds because there aren’t any more Blue Dogs, it look stronger than having 220 but having 30+ Democratic defection.
Can Perriello get every Lib vote he got last time in the most historic election EVAH? I heard that 2,000 non-felons were registered in Mecklenburg jails last time. are these people located somewhere that they can be told to vote for Perriello again? what about all the people registered from nursing homes that we now realize are too mentally ill to serve on juries? will they be able to vote for Perriello in 2010?
I’m not saying that Perriello sought out these voters. However, I suspect they were registered by those other than the local Republican party.
what I am saying is that combined with the fact that the 5th District is traditionally conservative, and that we want to “vote the bums out” & that the people in jail may be unlocate-able now, Perriello should be worried. Robert Hurt can beat him if he gets the nomination.
Great post, Jim.
NotAndySere,
I am not sure that Robert Hurt can be described as weak on taxes, he has for a long time been an advocate for a reduction in spending out of Richmond. His overall voting record is actually very good. I think that there is a possibility that he could galvanize conservative Republicans and conservative Independents, we’ll have to see.
I am undecided, but impressed with the bench of candidates so far.
Steven,
I just would like to know what has he done to distinguish himself from just another Republican in Richmond. So far the only major vote that stands out is the vote for the Warner tax increases. If would be nice to see what he’s taken strong stands on and advocated for, beyond just making brief comments in a weekly newsletter to constituents with platitudes about lower spending.
[...] J.R. Hoeft at Bearing Drift has a great post detailing the potential problems that could be facing both Nye and Perriello in 2010, especially since the 2009 elections proved to be very successful for the Republican party in their districts. [...]
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