What’s the fuss?

Voting

With all the fuss over Senator Lieberman’s behavior with the Democrats I decided to do a bit of a comparison to see what his politics looks like and what influences him. To do this I looked at a moderate Republican (Senator Olympia Snowe), which many are comparing him to. Turns out that since Obama has been President, Lieberman and Snowe have voted unanimously on all issues relating to health care except for one vote where Lieberman didn’t vote. In fact, they have only differed on health care votes 11 times since 2000. Below you’ll find a table going over their records in this area.

Where’s the money?

Something else interesting to look at is where Lieberman and Snowe are getting their campaign money. Thanks to Opensecrets.org we can follow campaign money pretty easily 🙂

Lieberman’s top five donors include: United Technologies, Sempra Energy, Purdue Pharma, UBS AG, and Bear Stearns.He received a total of $427,894 from insurance companies and another $359,370 from health professionals. For more details go here.

Snowe’s top five donors include include: O’Hara Corp, Aetna Inc, General Dynamics, Applied Thermal Sciences Inc, and New York Life Insurance. She received $164,585 from insurance companies and $175,074 from health professionals. For more details go here.

Looks like there’s a lot of money from the health care industry going into these two (not to mention banking). Below is a table comparison of Snowe’s and Lieberman’s votes on Health Care bills since 2000. Again, it’s a bit weird that they have been unanimous since Obama’s been President.

Voting Record Since 2000 Senator Lieberman vs Snowe on Health Issues (differences in voting are in bold and italics)…. (Thank you Project Vote Smart)

What are your thoughts?

