I don’t care about Pete Sessions; he’s from Texas and his district is basically a lost cause. But Mike Fitzpatrick represents Pennsylvania’s 8th District (where my parents live) and he defeated my friend Patrick Murphy (who had defeated him four years earlier) to take office. I’m appalled that Rep. Fitzpatrick chose to blow off taking the oath of office so he could attend an illegal fundraiser in the Capitol Building and then fraudulently voted on roll calls three thru eight. He wasn’t actually a member of Congress because he had not been sworn in, and so Congress had to pass a resolution (full text) to correct the mess Fitzpatrick made.
Maybe Fitzpatrick should read the House Ethics Rules instead of the parts of the Constitution he happens to like.
No Solicitation in House Offices, Rooms, or Buildings. The prohibition against House Members or employees soliciting campaign or political contributions in or from House offices, rooms, or buildings is very broad. With one minor exception that is discussed below, the prohibition applies to all forms of solicitations – solicitations made in person, over the telephone, or through the mail – and it applies to solicitations of any kind of campaign or political contribution, including contributions subject to FECA, and contributions for a state or local campaign, and so-called “soft money” contributions.
How is that consistent with a solicitation for $30 in the damn Capitol Building that takes place while you are supposed to be getting sworn in? You can’t even wait to get sworn in to start whoring for cash? Really?
The people of the 8th District threw your sorry ass out in 2006 and they made the correct choice. I don’t know why they hell they sent you back to Washington where you immediately humiliated them.
Here’s the roll call to the bill your idiocy and greed made necessary.
Not only did Sessions and Fitzpatrick fail to be sworn in according to the Constitution. Now, apparently, the House has passed a resolution which “fixes” this by pretending that their unconstitutional votes never happened.
That is, the Repukeliscum begin the 112th Congress by violating the Constitution, and then instead of redoing the votes, they unconstitutionally pass a resolution which uses a mechanism not in the constitution to fix this.
That means that the entire Congress is based on unconstitutional votes. Was the vote for Speaker included in this collection of unconstitutional invalid votes?
This congress, and all votes, are not constitutionally constituted. The 112th Congress has not been organized constitutionally. Call a local political reporter and get them to look at this.
Have they disbanded the House Ethics Committee yet?
they talked about it, but they didn’t pull the trigger.
I guess if he wasn’t sworn in as a congressman, the ethics rules didn’t apply to him yet. How handy!
he was a crook. what did they think – he had become a choir boy?
Fund raiser was sponsored by Koch bros as I understand. Guess they think after all the $$ they spent they own the Capitol. Fitzpatrick obviously responded to his master’s call.
This is going to be a wild next two years. These people have no respect.
An interesting list of Democrats keeps reappearing in these votes, Shuler in the lead.
Even more interesting in this case is who did not vote. It looked like a list of Democrats and Republicans who would have done the same thing if they could have gotten away with it.
The “Present” votes were by the guilty parties.
The opening scenes of Boehner’s kabuki have been very entertaining so far; he’s even gotten Andrew Card to fess up the the GOP is not serious about the debt ceiling (or at least better not be). Paul Ryan is backpedaling.
What happens when the people learn the true cost of repealing the Affordable Care Act?
Hey I thought the the Republicans were against illegals voting.
Boo:
Why were all the PA Democrats giving Fitzpatrick cover in this?