Tom Davis votes with Bush 90% -- or 95% -- of the time

Three names make Tom Davis no moderate:
Terri Schiavo - Tom Davis was not his own man when he signed the subpoena for the Florida woman.
Jack Abramoff - Davis was not his own man when he took Abramoff's money for himself and for the RNCC
Tom DeLay - Davis was not his own man when his wife accepted thousands of dollars from Tom DeLay's ARMPAC.  Davis worked side by side with DeLay and Abramoff at the RNCC. Also there are some votes in his record where he votes against both party's positions but suspiciously in step with Tom DeLay's voting record

Okay, there's a fourth name:  Tom Davis votes with George Bush 90% of the time.
Cross posted on DailyKos.

Tom Davis is a "money churner" and lobbyist bag man in the corrupt Republican leadership. That makes him a Republican king-maker. He has lied about his voting record and his moderate positions to his constituents. He insists in this debate that he is his own man. In order to defeat Davis in November, we need to demonstrate to voters that he does not have a moderate record. The honest candidate in the race is his opponent, Andy Hurst. Andy has a positive vision for 2006.

A few months ago I evaluated Tom Davis's voting record on the Washington Post projects for his 1,700 votes, as of the end of the last regular term. Those numbers show that since 2003, Tom Davis has cast a mere 102 votes where he crossed his party line to vote with Democrats (40 "No" votes, and 62 "Yes" votes). Of the 1,700 votes he cast since the start of the 2003 session, this constitutes 6% of the time that Davis has crossed party lines to vote with the Democrats.

More importantly is what he did vote for. He stood with Party leadership on the Iraq War and against Terri Schiavo. Where lobbyists and PACs brought him bags of money, he's voted with them and Party leadership for tax breaks for oil companies, windfall profits for pharmaceutical companies, and laws for bankers and financiers that benefit credit companies that prey on students and take homes away from families bankrupted by the crushing debt of catastrophic illness.

Not sure it's true? Let's look at the numbers:
Where the GOP position and DEM position are not the same:
* Tom Davis voted against the Democratic position and for the Republican position 699 times (363 when the GOP position is "FOR" and the Democratic position is "AGAINST" or "none" and 336 when the GOP position is "AGAINST" and the Democratic position is "FOR."

These 699 votes alone constitute over 41% of his votes cast since 2003. They include his GOP votes for the war in Iraq, tax breaks for the richest 2%, for Federal Courts to intervene in Terri Schiavo's case, and for bills written by big corporate donors like oil companies and drug companies and banks. They also include his votes against amendments to strengthen ethics and lobbying reform.

There are 794 votes where the GOP position and DEM position are the same (684 FOR and 110 AGAINST). These are often the "easiest" votes, for example, against cancer, or for a bridge name. For obvious reasons, none of these votes are counted as crossing over to the Democratic Party.

His 699 votes for Bush and the GOP together with the 794 votes that did not require crossing party lines constitute 1493, or almost 88% of Davis's votes since 2003 that are in line with Bush and the GOP. That leaves 12% left to account for.

Where the GOP position and the Dem position are the same, Tom Davis issued 28 votes that were not with either the GOP (nor with the Dems). None of these votes, 1.6% of total, are counted as crossing over to the Democratic party; however, it does include some suspicious votes in accord with Tom DeLay, where the two of them voted against both parties.
*  For 77 votes, Tom Davis was "not voting; or voted "present.  This is 4.2% of the 1,700 votes.

For those of you keeping score, this totals 1598 of 1,700 votes where Tom Davis voted with the GOP or did not cross party lines since 2003  The total is 94% of Davis's votes.

The remaining 102 votes constitute 6% of the votes where Davis crossed the party line from his Republican leadership.

Maybe this isn't fair.  After all, Congress had a special session in September 2006.  Davis had a chance to set aside bitter partisanship.  How did "his own man" do then?
There were 90 votes taken.  On 44 votes he voted with Bush and the GOP including votes to stop immigration reform, to prevent improvements to election integrity, and against a motion to go into secret session to review the Administration's illegal torture and wiretapping.  He crossed the Party lines to vote with the Democrats on 5 of 90 votes, for a rate of 5.5%.

Out of our new total of 1,790, he cast 107 total votes (64 "Yes" votes and 43 "No" votes) with the Democratic Party against the Republican Party and George Bush. His total percentage for crossing the Party line in these 1,790 votes drops from 6% to 5.98%.

Maybe this isn't fair, either.  After all, I had stopped to get a nice, round 1,700 votes in 2003.  There had been a few weeks in the 2003 term.  Could Davis have been right about 80%? Could he have been more moderate earlier in his career?  How did "his own man" do then?
It helps to go back to a flurry of votes on November 13, 2002, that will include legislation on Homeland Security, a vote on the continuation of the Iraq War, improvements to soldier's pay and benefits, and controversial bankruptcy legislation.  There were 645 votes taken.  On 298 votes, Davis voted with Bush and the GOP; on another 281 he voted with both parties agrees position (244 "Yes" votes and 41 "No."). He crossed Party lines 33 times (16 "Yes" votes and 17 "No" votes) of the 645 votes, or 5%.

Since 2002, of all 2,435 votes, Tom Davis has crossed the Party lines to cast 140 total votes (91 "Yes" votes and 59 "No" votes) with the Democratic Party and against the Republican Party and George Bush. His percentage of crossing the Party line drops to 5.7%.

Just as telling, his voting record is comparable to George Allen, who received a 100% rating from the ultra-conservative Conservative Union. Davis has announced he supports a change to Virginia's state Constitution to refuse to recognize any relationship that approximates marriage.

Ostensibly aimed at gay couples, this amendment is broad enough to void any legal arrangement between friends, unmarried couples, and colleagus to formalize relationships through living wills or shared property.

Tom Davis is a king-maker in the corrupt Republican leadership. He has donated millions of PAC dollars to over 100 races, in 40 states. (Click to find the candidate in your district. He has lied about his voting record and his moderate positions to his constituents.  We can defeat Tom Davis and Take Back the House, we need your help no matter where you're from. Luckily, Davis is facing a honest and tireless challenger with a positive vision for 2006. Please donate to and volunteer for Andy Hurst today.

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