Two independent thinkers

At first glance, Reps. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and Michael McNulty (D-N.Y.) do not have a lot in common, other than the fact that both just announced the 110th Congress would be their last.

{mosads}Tancredo is a brash, headline-attracting conservative who this year launched a long-shot bid for the White House. McNulty, a liberal on fiscal matters, was elected to the House nearly 20 years ago but rarely gets mentioned by major media outlets.

Yet these legislators share a fierce independent streak.

Tancredo crossed the Bush administration on a range of issues, most notably immigration reform and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill.

Tancredo’s rhetoric against President Bush on immigration was so biting that Karl Rove told him never to “darken the doorstep of the White House.”

But the fifth-termer also infuriated some congressional Republicans, most notably Rep. Tom DeLay (Texas), by backing GOP primary candidates who shared his views on border security.

Tancredo’s views on the need to secure the borders and opposing “amnesty” are well-known, earning him both praise and condemnation.
Unlike other outspoken politicians, however, Tancredo always went about his business with a smile. The press-savvy legislator knows he’s a troublemaker and has long relished the role. Attempts to silence him were a waste of time.

McNulty’s breaks with his party were less overt, though nonetheless substantive. He opposes abortion rights, criticized welfare reform and voted with Republicans on the contentious flag-desecration bill.

Unlike a majority of his Democratic colleagues in the House, McNulty supported the 2002 Iraq war authorization measure. He later called his vote a “huge mistake.”

In March, McNulty defied House Democratic leaders by rejecting their war-funding bill when they were scrambling for votes. But after learning of McNulty’s rationale, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) didn’t press him.

McNulty recounted how he testified against the Vietnam War at a congressional field hearing in 1970 during his first term as town supervisor of Green Island, N.Y. Several months after that testimony, McNulty explained, his brother, a Navy medic, was killed in Quang Nam Province.

“I have thought — many times since then — that if President Nixon had listened to the voices of reason back then, my brother Bill might still be alive.”

McNulty is leaving the House partly because of health reasons, as he suffers from Post Polio Syndrome. In his retirement speech on Monday, McNulty said, “Surely, I am one of the luckiest people on the face of the earth.”

Tancredo is departing because he believes he has done as much as he can do on immigration in the lower chamber, though he may run for the Senate in 2010.

The two lawmakers went about their business on Capitol Hill quite differently. It is clear, however, that both enjoyed their time in Congress and, most importantly, refused to let partisan politics break them.