The longest (self-)serving Congressman in Washington, Dingell joined the lower house in 1955, and never looked back.A potential Chairman for the House Energy Committee, Congressman Henry Waxman whipped votes to edge out the senior chairman for the seat, with Cap and Trade and Obamacare as the disastrous results.
Dingell's take on Cap and Trade? Republican:
Nobody in this country realizes that cap-and-trade is a tax - and it's a great big one.
It was a big tax, and one that died in the US Senate, thank goodness!
Despite his support for the auto industry, Dingell still cared about the animals:
Living wild species are like a library of books still unread. Our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning the library without ever having read its books.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_dingell.html#hgzaTLB1Q1hq0dmH.99
Some other interesting quotes from Rep. Dingell:
If we're going to change the laws, let's change them in ways which makes it easier to catch criminals, and yet at the same time protect the Second Amendment rights of our law-abiding citizens.
One has to wonder what the Congressman would think of President Obama, who does not even bother changing the laws, yet wants to make those who practice the Second Amendment criminals, while refusing to prosecute those who abuse the Second Amendment.
No Congressman should serve so many years, and have little to show for it. Just before his 2012 election, the Detroit News acknowledged that he was not a good Congressman, and the endorsement offered was one of the weakest on record.
And now his wife wants to run for the seat? Congress is not an inheritance, and any lineage, especially a liberal one, has no place in the House of Representatives.
What the hell do you know about John Dingell? Not a goddamn thing. You don't like him because he's actually accomplished things legislatively, unlike your rightie heroes. Here--learn something, asshat:
ReplyDeleteInstrumental in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (what he calls the most significant victory of his career). Republicans hate that, don't they, Artie?
He was the driving force behind the Clean Water Act of 1972, the Clean Air Act of 1990 and the Endangered Species Act; that alone puts him in rare congressional company when it comes to environmental advocacy. And Republicans hate that, don't they, Artie?
He fought for preservation of the Great Lakes and for greater conservation, in particular, along the straits of Detroit and southward toward Monroe. His love of the outdoors has led to legislation that will preserve it for generations to come. Republicans hate that, don't they, Artie?
And Dingell’s steady patience on health care reform, personified by his half-century habit of introducing the same bill providing for a national health care system for more than 50 years, was key in shaping the health reforms we have now. That was also the bookend to two lifetimes of work; his father, who held the congressional seat before him, had proposed health reform since the 1930s, and was key in the New Deal fights to create Social Security. Dingell carried that legacy forward in the 1960s, and was instrumental in the passage of Medicare.
Republicans hate legislative accomplishments. They prefer the do-nothingness of the Boehner/McConnell Congress. Useless, shiftless, and the least-accomplished in U.S. history.