Let’s look at how the Democrats who were elected to the Senate in 2006 and 2008 voted on yesterday’s cramdown amendment.
Class of ’06
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)- Yes
Ben Cardin (D-MD)- Yes
Bob Casey, Jr. (D-PA)- Yes
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)- Yes
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)- Yes
Bernie Sanders (I-VT)- Yes
Jon Tester (D-MT)- No
Jim Webb (D-VA)- Yes
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)- Yes
Class of ’08
Mark Begich (D-AK)- Yes
Kay Hagan (D-NC)- Yes
Jeff Merkley (D-OR)- Yes
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)- Yes
Mark Udall (D-CO)- Yes
Tom Udall (D-NM)- Yes
Mark Warner (D-VA)- Yes
Only one out of the sixteen Democrats that were elected in the last two election cycles chose to support mortgage lenders over people that are losing their homes. That shows how much progress we’ve made through our activism since 2004. In fact, let’s look at the rest of the caucus. If we do not include the four appointed senators (Gillibrand, Bennet, Kaufman, and Burris) or the 16 members of the classes of ’06 and ’08, there were 39 Democrats that could have voted yesterday. Kennedy and Rockefeller were not there to vote, so the true number is thirty-seven. Of those 37 Democrats, ten of them voted against cramdown. Let’s look at it this way:
Democrats elected before 2006: Yes= 27, No= 10, Not Voting= 2 (Percent Yes: 72.9%)
Democrats Elected in 2006 or 2008: Yes= 15, No= 1 (Percent Yes: 93.7%)
Appointed Democrats: Yes= 3, No= 1 (Percent Yes: 75.0%)
The future of the Democratic Party looks a lot better than the present, don’t you think?
