This is the first part of a series of posts I'll be doing over the next few days up until the election, where I will tell you not just who I'm voting for (or in some cases what), but also why.  This first post is on my choice for the 5th Congressional District in Wisconsin.  The two main candidates are the Republican incumbent Jim Sensenbrenner, and the Democratic challenger Bryan Kennedy.  This year I'll be voting for (though I won't go as far as to say endorsing) Bryan Kennedy.  Don't get excited Bryan.  If the Democrats had managed to get a rock past the primary, I would be voting for the rock instead.

Sensenbrenner is career politician, who has been in Congress for something like 18 straight terms.  On that count alone, I don't want to vote for him.  The House of Representatives was never meant to be filled with career politicians.  That's why they entire House is up for election every two years.  Of all the parts of the federal government, that is the part that is supposed to have turnover so that it most closely reflects the values of the people.  Even though Jim represents a heavily Republican district, he is so far removed now from the people that he doesn't know them any more.

One of the praises that I constantly hear about Sensenbrenner is how he fights pork, and votes against bills that have pork included in them.  While that may be true, Jim uses the exact same tactics that pork barrelers use in order to pass other bills that he wants.  The most recent and striking example of this was the Read ID bill, which I have blogged about many times.  When Real ID was originally presented in Congress as a bill on its own, and was debated on its own merits, it failed to pass.  This bill was Jim's baby... he was very passionate about it.  So instead of just letting it die, he managed to get it attached to an Iraq supplemental spending bill, where it passed.  This same tactic was also used in the Senate to get it passed.  Now I ask those of you who are staunchly against pork... how is this any different?  Instead of passing through a pork barrel bill, he managed to get an unfunded mandate on the states passed, which due to its heavy data sharing requirements essentially creates a National ID card.  Whether you agree with Real ID or not, the method that he used to get it passed is shameful.

I also have issue with Jim's attitude toward the drug war.  One fine example of how he wants to escalate the war on drugs was the Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005, which he authored and attempted to get passed.  From what I can tell, it failed.  But the implications of this act show his thinking.  You can read the details in my earlier post, but to sum up he thinks that it should be a federal crime for parents not to report drug use about their children to the police.  He also thinks that owning a gun while committing a non-violent crime should also be a federal offense.  And he also wants to loosen the definition of a "drug dealer" so that basically anyone caught with any amount of drugs is considered a dealer.  However you may feel about the war on drugs, the Draconian nature of the drug laws that Sensenbrenner believes in simply go too far, and overreach the bounds of reasonableness.  This bill is also written terribly, in that it obfuscates its true goals by making it impossible to read.  It is filled with things like "replace the fifth word of this section with 10".  So if you don't have the current law in front of you, and make the direct text changes yourself, it is impossible to see what the resultant law would look like.  This is the worst way to legislate.

Finally, I have a personal beef with Jim Sensenbrenner in that he has never replied to any correspondence that I have sent to him.  I live in his district, and vote in every single election.  I believe that answering to those you represent is the most basic, and most important task of someone who holds elected office.  To date, he has failed to even send one form letter in response to anything I have sent to him.  This, more than anything else, has cost him my vote.

To be clear, I'm not voting against Sensenbrenner as a referendum on George Bush, or the Iraq War.  I am voting against Jim Sensenbrenner as a referendum on Jim Sensenbrenner.