I’ve been looking at the recent voting record of presidential candidate Duncan Hunter this morning, and it isn’t pretty. The votes Hunter has taken within the past two years as a member of the House of Representatives place him firmly on the side of authoritarian prerogative and against the ability of people to question or even find out about the actions of their government. Duncan Hunter’s stands to increase government authority over we little people include:

Voting For the Military Commissions Act. Rep. Hunter voted YES on H.R. 6166 in 2006, despite swearing a solemn oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. That oath was violated when Duncan Hunter helped pass H.R. 6166, which is a direct attack upon the Constitution, and through its attack upon the Constitution an attack upon the freedom of every American and every person living under American jurisdiction.

Passed into law, the Military Commissions Act installs undemocratic executive committees without review to designate citizens and noncitizens alike as enemy combatants without standards for proof. It grants George W. Bush amnesty for his current violations of law. It allows the thoroughly untrustworthy George W. Bush supreme authority to decide whether an interrogation technique qualifies as torture. It allows hearsay evidence to be used to convict an accused person. It permits indefinite detention without review. All of these provisions in the bill are unconstitutional in their authoritarian preference for government prerogative over individual rights.

Voting Against the Farr Amendment. By voting “no” on the Farr Amendment during the 109th Congress, Rep. Hunter voted to keep Section 102 in H.R. 418, giving a Bush administration bureaucrat the ability to nullify any law without judicial review of that decision. Where I come from, they call that dictatorship.

Voting Against H.R. 1255. H.R. 1255, a bill that passed earlier this year on a vote of 333-93 in the House of Representatives, was the work of a large congressional majority which believes that White House records belong ultimately to the people of the United States. When he entered office, George W. Bush issued an edict which assigned past presidents and their heirs the right to do with presidential records what they personally saw fit. This is a recipe for historically disastrous revisionism. H.R. 1255 reverses the Bush edict, returning the ownership of presidential records to the people of the United States and making them available (after a period of time) for complete and accurate, not gauzily redacted, historical research. Duncan Hunter voted against this bill, prioritizing the prerogatives of those in power above the historical value of accuracy and the political value of openness.

Voting Against H.R. 1309. H.R. 1309, a bill that passed the House on a vote of 308-117 earlier this year, removes the authoritarian stain placed on the government of the United States shortly after George W. Bush took office — well, at least one of them. It used to be that citizens could access government documents through the Freedom of Information Act unless the government could affirmatively demonstrate the need for the document to remain private. George W. Bush changed that with an executive order in 2001, mandating that unless a citizen affirmatively demonstrated a lack of national security reasons for the disclosure of a document, the government could keep its documents off-limits. This is another authoritarian step in a nation founded on principles of openness and liberty. Duncan Hunter voted against this bill, making a most unfortunate stand against openness in favor of authoritarianism.

But just as often as Duncan Hunter voted against individual liberty, he simply failed to show up to vote. Duncan Hunter failed to vote on H.Res. 196, concerning world water issues — Hunter was absent. Duncan Hunter failed to vote on H.R. 137, concerning animal mutilation for sport — Hunter didn’t show up when Congress was in session. Duncan Hunter also failed to show up for voting on H.R. 1257, which concerned executive pay and the rights of shareholders. And Duncan Hunter was out of town when the Congress met to consider and vote on H.R. 802, a bill to fulfill America’s maritime treaty obligations.

I can’t decide which is worse — a member of Congress who promotes dictatorship in America, a member of Congress who doesn’t show up for work, or a member of Congress who thinks such a performance qualifies him to be America’s next president.