So What's Wrong With Ed Case? Is He Really Worse Than Joe Lieberman? Worse Than Tom DeLay?

Thursday, when Hawaii's stellar progressive congresswoman, Mazie Hirono, announced her intention to run for the seat being vacated by her friend and ally Daniel Akaka, we dashed off a quick post that detailed some of the specifics on Ed Case's long rap sheet of corporate shillery and conservative complicity. When he was in Congress his career was distinguished by two characteristics-- he was the closest thing the Democratic caucus had to a conservative Republican and he was the laziest Member of Congress with the worst attendance record.

The post pointed to his support for Republican and corporate initiatives like job-killing trade legislation and to special interests legislation like abolishing the estate tax for the super-rich, making it easier for banksters to rip off consumers, screwing over working families on pensions and the never-ending Republican proposals to shift the tax burden to the middle class. He generally voted with the most reactionary Democrats when they joined the GOP to stifle reform and, we tried to make the point that anyone who likes Chamber of Commerce pawns and Patriot Act-type Dems like Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK) and Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN) will be perfectly happy with Ed Case-- especially if xenophobia and war-mongering and making sure that victims of big corporations have no recourse to the courts are on the menu.

But in our rush to put up a place to donate to Mazie's campaign, we left off one of the most important factors in Case's long and shameful record-- his disregard for the rights of women when it came to choice and his siding with right-wing extremist against women. Back in 2005 when Case was an astoundingly bad congressman, his Republican allies tried to defund Planned Parenthood by cutting Title X family planning out of the budget-- just as they've done this year. This year Mazie Hirono strenuously opposed that, of course. Back in 2005 an amendment by far right sociopath Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) targeted NPR, PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Title X family planning all in one shot. Only one Democrat crossed the aisle to vote for the most extreme piece of legislation of that session... Ed Case. Not even a majority of Republicans were that extreme (in those days). 197 Democrats and 122 Republicans voted NO and it failed 102-320. But Case voted YES, something even right-wing extremists like Darrell Issa, Steve Pearce, Denny Rehberg, Devin Nunes, John Culberson, Buck McKeon and Jerry Lewis, all of whom voted for essentially the same crap this year, were unwilling to do then. Even Tom DeLay and Henry Hyde found it too extreme and voted against it!

Case's backers in Hawaii try to portray him as socially moderate, rather than a reactionary extremist. But he's never explained to the women of Hawaii why he voted against funding for Planned Parenthood. There's no reason he should even be running as a Democrat. The guy has a clearly Republican voting record and it would be nothing short of catastrophic to reward his perfidy with a Senate seat. A Senator Case would make Ben Nelson and Joe Manchin look liberal. Let's help make sure Mazie replaces Dan Akaka and not the right-winger who tried to beat Akaka in a primary 5 years ago. Please consider contributing to Mazie's campaign here through ActBlue. Sending Ed Case to the Senate is tantamount to sending a conservative Republican to the Senate.