Boehner a rubber stamp for Pelosi?

It’s an attack ad that writes itself: The House Republican
leader, Rep. John Boehner (Ohio), votes with liberal Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.) a majority of the time.

The statistic seems impossible to believe, given the
ferocity with which Boehner denounces Pelosi, the progressive champion of San
Francisco elitism and favorite GOP villain.

{mosads}But it’s true, according to an analysis by Democrats.
Boehner has voted with the Democratic leadership 52 percent of the time in
2010. So has Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.), chairman of the Republican conference and
former head of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House Republican whip, and Rep.
Pete Sessions (Tex.), head of the GOP’s House campaign committee, are even
cozier with Pelosi. They’ve voted with her 57 percent of the time.

And Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), the conservative
firebrand who has compared the Democratic agenda to socialism? She’s with
Pelosi on 58 percent of House votes.

The data come from a Democratic leadership review of the 565
roll call votes in the House from January through the end of September, when
Congress left Washington for the campaign trail. Since the Speaker herself
rarely votes, the comparison is made using the recommended vote of the party
leadership.

The percentages do not reveal a hidden bipartisanship in the
rancorous 111^th Congress, but they do throw into sharp relief the
statistic that campaign ad makers use more than any other to cast opponents as
ideological rubberstamps.

Republican campaigns nationwide are running dozens of ads
that cite the percentage of time an incumbent Democrat votes with Pelosi.

In Alabama’s 2^nd district, the National
Republican Congressional Committee attacks Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright in
radio and television ads for voting “with Pelosi 70 percent of the time” since
2009. In Idaho’s 1^st district, Republican Raul Labrador’s ad
criticizes Rep. Walt Minnick (D) for voting “with Obama/Pelosi over 70
percent.” Bright and Minnick of two of the most conservative Democrats in the
House who opposed their party’s major agenda items.

The percentage appears high, but when Bright and Minnick are
compared with the conservative Bachmann, the difference is only a few dozen
votes. And compared with more centrist Republicans like Reps. Tim Murphy (Pa. –
66 percent with Pelosi) and Charlie Dent (Pa. – 65 percent), the disparity is
even smaller.

The explanation for the elevated voting percentages is
simple: While hotly-disputed legislation on healthcare, climate change and
government spending command the public’s attention, the vast majority of
congressional votes occur on more mundane and non-controversial items, like the
naming of post offices or designating weeks or months to cancer awareness and
other causes.

In the database of votes that campaigns rely on for attack
ads, however, a vote to designate June 30^th as National ESIGN Day or
to congratulate the South Carolina Gamecocks for winning the College World
Series counts the same as votes to overhaul the nation’s healthcare and energy
industries.

The Republican strategy is a long-running standard of
congressional campaigns. Democrats used it to similar effect in 2006 and 2008,
tying even the most centrist Republicans to the unpopular President George W.
Bush by virtue of their voting records. And a few Democratic campaigns are
linking their opponents to Bush in 2010. The campaign of Ohio Democratic Senate
nominee Lee Fisher, for example, has criticized Republican Rob Portman, a
former congressman, of having “voted with the Bush administration nearly 95
percent of the time.”

“The data can be manipulated by both sides, and they are,”
said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings
Institution. Voters, she said, often don’t know what to make of the statistics
that flash across a TV screen in 30-second spots. “Are these the most important
bills? Are these the least important bills?” a voter might wonder, Binder said.

Democrats are fighting back with their own spin on the
numbers. Bright is running a TV ad that says he voted “80 percent with the
Republican leader,” and Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), in his own ad, touts his
record of voting 65 percent “with Republican leaders.”

As for Boehner, the NRCC scoffed at the Democratic analysis.
“It’s necessary to question any numbers coming from the same party that
predicted their trillion dollar stimulus bill would keep unemployment below 8
percent,” committee spokesman Paul Lindsay said. “The fact that House Democrat
staffers spent their time compiling this nonsense is further proof of why their
party has failed to address the economic crisis facing American families, and
why voters are determined to send them packing in November.”

Doug Thornell, a spokesman for Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and assistant to the Speaker, shot back: “Gosh, I wonder what the Tea Party would think if they knew House Republican leaders vote with Speaker Pelosi most of the time. This analysis just shows how big of a joke the GOP argument against Democrats is.”