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Nancy Pelosi's Record |
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Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco's current representative in Congress, District 8, enjoys a reputation as a progressive However, a closer look at her actions demonstrates serious problems with being out of step with her constituents here in the Bay Area. The most obvious examples include the facts that she has consistently voted to keep funding the Iraq war under the guise of "supporting the troops", supports the insidious Patriot Act (largely a slap in the face to anyone who cherishes privacy protections under the Constitution), and her idea that national and state parks should be revenue-generating self-supporters, instead of publicly maintained natural environment areas. - WAR on Iraq : March 20, 2003 - The day after the war on Iraq was launched, as tens of thousands of San Franciscans marched in the street protesting the unilateral invasion, Pelosi was in Congress condemning the demonstrators. She voted that very day for a resolution declaring "unequivocal support and appreciation to the president...for his firm leadership and decisive action." To this day, no weapons of mass destruction have been located in Iraq, and the country is basically in a state of civil war. Last fall, despite endorsing the call of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, she voted against immediate withdrawal just one day later, on Nov. 18, 2006. Doing so helped to kill the momentum building at that time to force a timetable for troop withdrawals. She has voted again and again to approve ever-increasing military spending. Of note, in 2002, she voted for a bill that allocated billions for the development of new low-yield 'usable' nuclear weapons, and, in 2003, she voted for a bill that exempted the military from the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. - DOMESTIC WIRETAPPING BY THE NSA: Pelosi was one of the very few legislators who learned about Bush's authorization of secret warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens. She said nothing for six months about this clear violation of the Constitution, in effect AIDING AND ABETTING this CLEAR VIOLATION of the CONSTITUTION. "I was advised of President Bush's decision to provide [wiretapping] authority to the National Security Agency...and have been provided with updates on several occasions," she acknowledged. Many Constitutional scholars and other legal scholars, including those on the right (such as George Will), have stated openly that the president has clearly broken the law by side-stepping the FISA courts in these matters, and that it is indeed an IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE, as well as CRIMINAL. - THE PATRIOT ACT: This 300-page plus document was not even read by most Congressional reps before being signed into law. Despite the opposition of San Franciscans, Pelosi did not join, let alone lead, the 66 legislators who opposed this Orwellian legislation. Instead she voted to approve the Patriot Act, which gives enormous, unwarranted power to the executive branch, unchecked by meaningful judicial review. This new authority has been used against American citizens in routine criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism, against immigrants within our borders legally, and against those whose First Amendment activities are deemed threats to national security by the Attorney General. - PRESIDIO PRIVATIZATION: This move by Pelosi was, in our view, and EGREGIOUSLY ANTI-PROGRESSIVE action, and has serious far-reaching consequences as it's providing a precedent for efforts to privatize other national parks around the country. The SF Guardian reported: "It's been just over 10 years since Congress passed Rep. Nancy Pelosi's Presidio Trust legislation, effectively creating the first privatized national park in the United States. The results are pretty clear: Just cruise through the Presidio and check out the gigantic new office complex George Lucas has built. In fact, the private business interests that were given control of the park in 1995 now oversee more than 80 percent of the 1,408-acre parcel. The goal of the privatizers: raise enough money from development, leases, and other real estate deals to pay the entire cost of running the park by 2013. That's what Pelosi's legislation requires." This is a disaster for San Francisco. At the time, we warned it would set a terrible precedent for the nation: Once you turn the national parks over to private interests and require the parks to pay for themselves, you'll get the equivalent of Corporations putting billboards in the Grand Canyon, casinos demanding concessions at Yosemite, etc. Just as we had feared and warned, the Republicans have discovered Pelosi's precedent, and are looking at ways to privatize 350 million acres of public land. A rider by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Tracy) that would have allowed big corporations to take over public parcels for almost nothing nearly snuck into a 2005 budget bill. And earlier this year, Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican, introduced a bill that would in many ways mirror Pelosi's model for the entire national park system, by cutting back on park funding and requiring the parks to find corporate sponsors to make up the difference. This is a gigantic leap from the philosophy behind the formation of the national park system a century ago. National parks aren't supposed to be revenue generators. They're supposed to be publicly supported and publicly controlled places where the public can enjoy the natural world. The right wing has once again found a so-called progressive to do its' work. It was a San Francisco Democrat, a woman who is now the highest-ranking Democratic politician in Washington, who gave the idea of privatizing parks its liberal credibility. - NAFTA: Pelosi voted for NAFTA and supported it throughout its tortuous path into law. She has supported, and continues to support, other similar laws that entrench and exacerbate the most exploitative types of globalization, and generally refuses to insist on environmental or labor clauses in these bills to mitigate their worst effects. While she finally did vote against CAFTA during the highly contentious vote last July, she chose not to use her leadership position to convince others to follow her lead, and CAFTA passed 217-215, with 15 Democrats voting for it. - NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: Pelosi voted for this bill, another counter-intuitively named Bush law. In addition to, according to the latest Harvard study, accomplishing the opposite of its stated goal — bringing minority achievment up to national levels — this school 'reform' withholds federal money from any school which does not provide military recruiters not only with access to facilities, but also with contact information for every student. This bill also withholds federal money from any school district that prevents or denies students from participating in constitutionally protected prayer in public schools, and also withholds federal money to any school district that denies Boy Scouts the use of school facilities but allows other youth groups to use those same facilities. - GAY MARRIAGE: Pelosi refused to support gay marriage and kept silent for over a month after gay marriages began in San Francisco. Then, when it was safe, once the California Supreme Court had halted the marriages, she emerged and said that she had in fact supported gay marriage all along. - GMO Foods: Pelosi voted against progressives, and supported Bush in his challenge on rules for export/import of genetically-modified foods to Europe. - PUBLIC POWER: Pelosi has repeatedly taken no position on the huge grassroots efforts to bring public power to San Francisco. A 'no position' from San Francisco's primary representative in D.C. has effectively robbed San Francisco of leadership on implementation of the federal Raker Act's mandate on public power for San Francisco. - Renewable Energy: Pelosi's record is hardly considered stellar on this issue. She voted against increasing funding for renewable energy on June 25, 2004, and voted against allocating $52 million from fossil fuel to renewables on June 21, 2001 - Sentencing Guidelines: Pelosi voted against progressives and supported an amendment that severely limits judges' discretion — specifically their ability to departure downward when sentencing offenders under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. This amendment forces judges to ignore extenuating circumstance and limits their flexibility when handing down sentences. It also requires the Department of Justice to develop a black list of judges who use downward departures in these types of cases. - UNIONS: Despite receiving the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Union, Pelosi and her husband own a $25 million vineyard which is a non-union shop. The Pelosis are also partners in a restaurant chain called Piatti, which has 900 employees. The chain is also a non-union shop. -Tax Cuts for the Wealthy: Pelosi has voted to support Bush's call for raising the debt ceiling to finance further military expenditures and saddle future generations with even higher debt payments. She also opposed a call from progressives to examine the effect of the 1.35 trillion dollar 2001 tax cut on the budget before voting on this bill to go further into debt. She opposed an effort by progressives to raise the issue of corporate corruption during 2002, as Republicans were making a concerted attempt to make permanent the various temporary provisions in the $1.35 trillion Bush tax cut of 2001. - 'Rave' Parties: On April 10, 2003, Pelosi voted to effectively ban the popular dance parties called 'raves'. The RAVE Act (Reducing America's Vulnerability to Ecstacy Act) gives federal prosecutors new powers to shut down community events and punish business owners for hosting and promoting them, potentially subjecting innocent business-owners to enormous fines and imprisonment if customers sell or use drugs on premises or at their events — even if they were not involved in the offenses in any way. According to the Electronic Music Defense & Education Fund: "Punishing innocent businessmen and women for the crimes of their customers is unprecedented in U.S. history."
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