Representing the Midwestern common-sense of his Michigan district, Representative Fred Upton is one of the most active members of Congress working to ensure our nation is on a path toward a smaller, more efficient, more effective federal government.
First and foremost, Fred is a leader in and for all of Southwest Michigan. As such, he has left a distinct mark on our communities. He's working on healing the racial divide in the Twin Cities and plays a key role in promoting economic development for the entire region. Working from his offices in Kalamazoo and the Twin Cities, Upton has spearheaded many projects to improve our quality of life.
Fred has been steadfast in protecting Southwest Michigan from penalties and economic sanctions for dirty air blowing across Lake Michigan. He has secured millions of dollars for his number one transportation priority in Congress, the widening of I-94, which will ease traffic congestion and improve safety. He has worked to deliver millions of dollars to local first responders. Fred also worked with local officials in securing a $15.9 million HOPE VI grant from the federal government to assist in the construction and revitalization of public housing in Benton Harbor.
Ever cognizant of his roots, Upton has brought his small-town, Midwestern values to bear in Washington. Fred has been a leading advocate for children in Congress. He coauthored .kids legislation to create a kid friendly area on the Internet, safe from obscene material and child predators. Fred has also been working to clean up the public airwaves, writing legislation to raise the fines the FCC can levy for indecent material aired over broadcast TV and radio during the family hour.
Fred personally visits at least one school a week to hear the concerns of students and administrators. Fred has been a tireless advocate for Southwest Michigan?s institutions of higher learning, working to secure federal funding for many of the local universities, including several million dollars for Western Michigan University?s nanotechnology research program.
In the House of Representatives, Fred is a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is currently chairman of the powerful Telecommunications Subcommittee. Regarded as one of the younger, more active members of Congress, he is widely seen as a perfect fit for this chairmanship of this important subcommittee which has jurisdiction over newly emerging high-tech issues such as telemedicine, broadband deployment, and the wiring of America's classrooms for Internet technology. Fred is currently working to update our telecomm laws ? bringing the laws up to speed with emerging technologies. He sees these issues as vital to continued economic growth in America.
Fred prides himself on staying closely connected with his constituents. Fred personally reads the more than 1000 legislative letters that he receives each week he signs every response. Fred grew up in St. Joseph, Michigan as one of five children of Stephen and Elizabeth Upton. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he and his wife, Amey, have two children.
(Upton House
web site).
Today, former Michigan Congressional Representative Mark Siljander was indicted on 42 counts of money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges. There's also some lying and oh, yeah, TERRORISM in there too. To add insult to injury, it appears that he paid himself with stolen U.S. AID funds that were intended to help developing nations.
The former Republican congressman from Michigan, Mark Deli Siljander, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.
A 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Missouri, accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying -- money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Prior to serving in Congress, Siljander graduated from Western Michigan University and served in the Michigan House for 4 years. He was a Reagan appointee to the U.N. after losing his seat in a primary battle to U.S. Representative Fred Upton who currently holds the seat.
This is only a rough approximation, because I'm adding the major counties within the 6th - I don't have the breakdown for the parts of Allegan in and out of the 6th, and I'm neglecting the part of Calhoun in the 6th.
However, the six major counties are reporting 16483 votes for Clinton, 11570 votes for Uncommitted. Since no other candidates passed 15%, this equates to 59% Clinton, 41% Uncommitted. Although the actual results will differ slightly, it is clear that of our five delegates, Clinton won three, and Uncommitted two. By MDP affirmative action rules, the Clinton delegates will be two females and one male, the Uncommitted one female and one male.
The Americans Against Escalation in Iraq campaign has a new TV ad, "DRAFT", going after Michigan's Rep. Fred Upton, as well as Senator McConnell and Reps. Drake and English. The ad hits them all for their support of Bush's endless war.
Update: Profiles in Courage.. Fred Upton is one of the 11 Republicans who confronted Bush privately this week. But he voted publicly against two Iraq bills yesterday that would actually hold the President accountable. Read more.
Second update: Cut-and-run Gen. Batiste fired by CBS for participating in Vote Vet ad. Go below the fold to see Keith Olbermann interview him about it.
VoteVets.org is today launching a three-ad series featuring three retired generals, two of whom were George Bush's commanders on the ground. Their ads are airing in states and districts of those Members of Congress who are very close to breaking with the President on Iraq, and joining the troops and American people. You can visit the Vote Vets homepage here.
Feeling frisky this morning. Consider this an annex to the Coffee Talk.
The AP tells us about on the
Senate Republican plan to cut pay for people who take care of
low income senior citizens and people who have a disability. I
guess this must be what the Republicans mean by "family
values." Wonder whose family they mean? Certainly isn't mine.
The Good
Ol' Boys on Off the Record say a government shutdown isn't
going to happen. Mind you, these are the same crusty old white guys who
repeatedly predicted a close race between Jennifer Granholm and Dick
DeVos. Meanwhile, Gongwer's Stephanie Korneffel puts
the odds of a shutdown at 50 percent. Pfft! Silly girl. That's what you
get when you send a woman to do a man's job! This place hasn't been the
same since they started letting the chicks in (extreme condition red
snark alert).
For the second time in two years, state Rep. John
Garfield (R-Rochester Hills) has been busted for drunk
driving. This comes three months after Rep. Garfield voted for SB
1241 and HB
6009, two bills which tighten penalties for repeat drunk
drivers.
U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg was mocked Thursday on
“The
Colbert Report,” a stinging satire of news talkfests on
Comedy Central.
Host Stephen Colbert did a sarcastic segment saying the U.S.
troop surge in Iraq was working.
“The fact is, Baghdad is in great shape,” he said.
“Like Michigan Rep.
Tim Walberg said last week, ‘In many places, it’s
as safe and cared for
as Detroit’.”
After flashing a picture of Walberg, R-Tipton, Colbert paused for
audience laughter.
“That’s
the way you represent the people of Michigan,” Colbert said.
“Those tourism dollars must be pouring in.”
And Stephen should know. Just this week, was
appointed as an (honorary) member of the Saginaw County
Convention and Visitors Bureau. Maybe he'd be willing to take up
residence in the 7th and run for Congress?
And finally, our
So-Called Liberal Media Prize for this morning goes to the Niles
Daily Star:
WASHINGTON - U.S.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-St.
Joseph, rejected attempts by the Democrat
majority to push through the
highest tax increase in American history.
The
$400 billion of tax increases in the Democrat budget will particularly
burden middle-income families, low-income earners, families with
children and small businesses.
The Democrat
budget, H.Con.Res.
99, passed the House by a vote of 216 to 210. Upton did vote for a
substitute budget that would not raise taxes, but that measure failed.
"The
Democrat
budget is nothing short of the largest tax hike in American
history," said Upton. "While House Democrats claim that the budget does
not raise taxes 'one penny,' the numbers don't lie and taxes will
skyrocket $400 billion over the next five years." (emphasis aded)
Whoever "wrote" this
story (transcribed from a Republican press release is more like it)
neglected to put a byline on it. Too bad. Fox News may well
be interested in recruiting them to "moderate" the next Congressional
Black Caucus Democratic
presidential debate.
I know we've had our issues with Fred Upton(R) (from SW MI) but he's doing the right thing here. Everyone out there, let's do the right thing and call Fred Upton's office and tell him we appreciate his stance against the troop surge in Iraq. He's getting alot of angry calls from his right wing whacked out base. We need Republican's help to bring this diasterous war in Iraq to an end, and help stop a strike against Iran.
Call Fred Upton's office at (269) 385-0039 or (202) 225-3761
From a Talking Points Memo Reader JA ...
Our Republican Congressman Fred Upton just came out as anti-surge. It's front page of the local paper. I called his office ... to say thank you and the aide who answered the phone sounded worn out. I know this guy, his name is ... and he said that it was so nice to hear something positive. They had already gotten 80 angry phone calls and only four good ones. Is this worth a mention so that people in this district who are talkingpointsmemo readers can call in and give support to Fred?
The Freep has a nice summary of our delegation, their committee assignments - or hoped-for assignments. (Side note: don't like the new look. Why do websites try and make it so hard to find their content?)
Of interest: Fred Upton, formerly chairman of the subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet (Energy & Commerce), hopes to get an assignment to that committee again. What is his stance on net neutrality? He voted against the Markey amendment last time (ie. he voted against net neutrality).
I ended Fear and Smear, Part II (below) with a plea that everyone read Kevin Tillman's letter and send it to everyone they know who is still considering voting for a Republican for anything anywhere. I haven't seen any polls but I'll bet that Michigan's southwest corner, the 6th CD including everything from Kalamazoo to Lake Michigan, has lots of people ready to vote for Republicans. Fred Upton's congressional district isn't on anyone's target list. It should be. He's a classic Bush rubber stamp with a terrible voting record that savages the interests of his constituents in order to better serve the interests of the Big Oil and Big Pharma bribers who generously finance his political career.
His progressive opponent, Kim Clark, is a first time candidate, a successful small businessman, writer and community organizer. Kim believes strongly in the core progressive platform, including universal health care, clean energy and a rational response to global climate change, equal civil rights for all, good jobs with living wages, publicly funded elections, fiscal responsibility, and open, honest accountable government and elections. He supports the repeal of No Child Left Behind and opposes private school vouchers. Clark supports the immediate end to the American occupation of Iraq.
Upton is chairman of the House subcommittee on Telecommunications. He is the Bush-Cheney point man in the House on the effort to end net neutrality and give corporate giants control of the functionality of the Internet. He supports the notion that Iraq is the center of the War on Terror and that the U.S. should pursue that war indefinitely. He went into action after Janet Jackson exposed her breast for two seconds on TV, while in the meantime, he is the man responsible for holding up a bill that turns bandwidth over to our first responders so they can communicate with one another during an emergency such as Katrina or 9/11. The bandwidth in question is currently enjoyed by Upton’s corporate supporters. He votes with George Bush and the Republican majority nearly 90% of the time.
The Sixth District race has been very balanced in the last four presidential elections-- Bush beating Gore by 52% and Kerry by 53%-- and now in 2006, Upton finds himself in a real race against a very charismatic opponent, unknown outside the district, Kim Clark. The Clark campaign has painted "Had Enough?" on the side of it’s campaign bus, has filled it with bio diesel, plays the Blue America theme song everywhere it goes, and has organized rallies to greet the bus as it drives through the 6th CD. Clark soundly defeated Upton in two debates, and his TV spots begin next week. Although the DCCC doesn't seem to be aware of any, there are good reasons to believe that Michigan's Sixth District will be part of the progressive landslide of 2006. Kim can use some help from the grassroots to make up for the studied indifference from Inside the Beltway, where gay candidates opposing corporate money in politics and wanting to pull the country out of Iraq are not embraced by the Rahm Emanuels of the Democratic Party. Let's give Kim a hand here.
Our Blue America team just customized the song and video to remind people in southwest Michigan that it's time to throw Fred Upton out and replace him with someone who will represent their interests, Kim Clark.
Governor Granholm was down in my old stomping grounds rallying supporters yesterday. The Ann Arbor News reports.
U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Holland) gives the Iraq war a "C" grade. Hmm...I wonder what an "F" would look like? I also wonder why Hoekstra - who chairs the Intelligence Committee sat on an independent report for months about how defrocked U.S. Rep. Duke Cunningham
(R-Prison) used his seat on the Intelligence Committee to enrich
himself at the expense of taxpayers and our national security.
Meanwhile, the Holland Sentinelquotes Hoekstra as saying George Bush's new torture law could "lawyer-up" the Iraq war. Hoekstra also says he wants to send more American troops to Iraq.
Wayne State University law professor John Mogkexplains in the DN this morning
what some of the potential negative unintended consesuences of Proposal
4 (eminent domain) in terms of the effort to revitalize Detroit.
LiberalLucy was down in Detroit today
with the intention of liveblogging the U.S. Senate debate. Alas, no
wireless. However, she does report that Stabenow did get a punch in
saying she voted against the Iraq war, which Bouchard desperately tried
to weasel out of saying how he would have voted.
In Flint, backers of the ballot proposal banning affirmative action in Michigan spparently decided at the last minute to skip out on a debate.
A Three Oaks building owned by Dem U.S. House challenger Kim Clark (CD06 - running against Fred Upton) has burned down! No word on the cause yet. From the Kalamazoo Gazette. Here's Kim's website. I imagine he could really use some love right now.
The Monroe Evening News has a nice summary of state ballot proposals that ordinary folks can understand.
Read more from the AP Wire story and the Washington Post story. Because the bill already passed the Senate, now it goes to the President's desk - who will almost certainly sign it.
...Republicans said the measure cemented the GOP's status as the party of smaller, more efficient government. But Democrats said the measure, when combined with an upcoming bill cutting taxes by about $70 billion, would lead to an increase in the deficit.
...Pediatricians say provisions allowing states to eliminate some guaranteed Medicaid child health care services and charge new and increased co-payments would end up hurting children by driving tens of thousands of beneficiaries out of the program.
Student groups charged the bill harmed college student through $11.9 billion in cuts to the student loan program, including higher fees on student and higher interest rates on parent loans.
Roll Call vote count here. All the Democrats were united against it, and 13 Republicans crossed over to vote against it too. But the bill passed, 216-214.
Did any of Michigan's GOP delegation grow a backbone and vote against it? No.
“What I don’t understand is, how did Iowa get a better bowl than Michigan when we beat them in the regular season?†Upton asked.
Upton, as in Fred Upton, your congressman. The quote is from a Michigan Daily article (front page), you can read it here.
What I don't understand is, how does this man have a job? Not just as a congressman, but any job. This is the number two man on the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, not a small subject in this day and age. When deciding to hold hearings, many people might say that the exodus of manufacturing jobs is a worthy issue, but true visionaries like Fred Upton know better. They know about the pure evil that is THE BCS!!!
Yes, college football has risen so far that mere existence of the blasphemous BCS threatens the very fabric of our nation. Luckily we have the good representative Fred Upton to thoroughly investigate the matter and hear out complains from the Big Ten.
sigh
Last week we had McCotter thinking we're paying him to be a rock star and now we have Upton thinking we're paying him to imbibe with the boys at a sports bar in the capital building. If your boss told you to do anything you want to help the country, research any issue, write a law, visit a hospital, lobby your friends...etc. and then you went and decided to talk to football coaches, you'd be out of a job in a second.
It's nice, though, that we have a wonderful system called democracy, where you can play boss, and fire these lazy bums.
MF: This looks like almost the reverse of U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Menominee)...
AF: Upton has the second best lead over his presidential candidate of
all the Michigan U.S. House members. He was re-elected with just over
two-thirds of the vote - about 66.8%. That's a district that Democrats
have never held - maybe in 1932. It's the descendant of the old David
Stockman/Edward Hutchinson district. It's always been very Republican,
very conservative Republican. What happened in the redistricting is
that Kalamazoo was taken out of a more central district, put into that
district, and that's given a Democratic base in the district.
Suddenly, John Kerry gets over 46.5% there. I don't think when that was
drawn, the Republicans viewed that as a district that would get
up to 46.5% Democratic. Upton is fairly moderate, so he's not
attracting a lot of attention. And it's probably still Republican
enough so that it's just out of reach. But it's sure surprising to see it as the eight most Democratic district out of 15. You would not have picked that just looking at the map. It looks like it should be a much more Republican district. But there it is, and there are a couple of places that have some Democratic strength, and its conceivable that someday a Democrat could come out of Kalamazoo with a tailwind and a big, big margin out of Kalamazoo and swamp the rest of the district.
It's not happening this election. I don't think it's likely to happen
as long as Upton is there. But you could conceive of a time in the
future when Upton retires and an extremely conservative or weak Republican is on the ballot, and the Democrats could conceivably win it. It's just not going to happen soon.
For quick reference, here's a wallet-sized list of all of Michigan's congressional delegation and the amounts each officeholder has received from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. PAC for Responsible Government over the past five years or so (the horrible irony behind the names of some of these corporate PACS never ceases to amaze me). Funny how U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Brighton) got 20 grand from Wal-Mart as he continues to crusade against Chinese currency manipulation, or - as he so eloquently put it - "the new red menace." (snark) I'm no economist, but it sure seems to me that an inflated Yuan would cut into Wal-Mart's bottom line. All of this begs the question of whether Wal-Mart is getting a poor return on their "investment" or Mike's talk about currency manipulation is a bunch of non-starter B.S. You decide.
U.S. Senate
Carl Levin (D)
$0.00
Debbie Stabenow (D)
$0.00
U.S. House
Bart Stupak (D)
$0.00
Pete Hoekstra (R)
$5,000.00
Vern Ehlers (R)
$5,000.00
Dave Camp (R)
$2,500.00
Dave Kildee (D)
$0.00
Fred Upton (R)
$10,000.00
Joe Schwarz (R)
$0.00
Mike Rogers (R)
$20,000.00
Joe Knollenberg (R)
$20,000.00
Candice Miller (R)
$6,000.00
Thaddeus McCotter (R)
$13,500.00
Sander Levin (D)
$0.00
Carolyn Kilpatrick (D)
$1,000.00
John Conyers, Jr. (D)
$0.00
John Dingell (D)
$5,000.00
Source: Federal Elections Commission
BTW, Dingell got his 5k during his primary fight with then-U.S. Rep. Lynn Rivers (who really needs to get back into politics). Also -- At first glance, it doesn't appear that Wal-Mart has a state-level PAC. If they do, it doesn't include the word "Wal-Mart" in the name.
2008 Status: Unknown
