Dennis Kucinich and Maxine Waters are among the more progressive members of the House of Representatives. That’s why I was confused when I saw that Representatives Kucinich and Waters had joined right wing Democrat James Marshall in voting against H.R. 2082, an intelligence appropriations bill that contained a ban of waterboarding and other forms of torture.
There still has been no explanation of that vote from either Waters or Kucinich on their congressional web sites. I got an explanation of sorts, however, from one of our readers today. Someone who calls herself Ruth wrote, “Hr 2082 was the Intelligence Authorization Act, which provided funding for spying on Americans and for war. Just because they added an anti-torture provision to a bad bill doesn’t make it a good bill. They get a home run for voting against that bill.”
Is that why Waters and Kucinich voted against H.R. 2082? Is that why they voted the same way as 185 Republicans? Well, we can’t really know that, given that neither Kucinich nor Waters is talking about the vote.
Let me give Kucinich the benefit of the doubt, however, and conclude that they voted against the torture ban because they didn’t like the other funding that H.R. 2082 provided. If that is true, where is the followup?
In a body like the U.S. House of Representatives, you don’t solve problems just by saying no. In order to make progress, you need to offer an alternative yes. If you want to ban torture, for example, but you don’t like the general bill that the torture ban is attached to, you vote no, but then you follow up. You create another bill, without the problems, that bans torture, and you work to make sure that your alternative legislation is passed.
The trouble with Maxine Waters and Dennis Kucinich is this: They haven’t done the followup. After voting against the torture ban in H.R. 2082, neither one has introduced any alternative legislation to ban torture.
Without any followup, and without any explanation of their protest votes, Kucinich and Waters haven’t actually accomplished anything – not to stop torture, and not to stop the occupation of Iraq.
