Tom Tancredo on Government Reform Republican Representative (CO-6)

2001: pledged 3-term limit; 2002: served 4th & 5th term

On September 26, 2002 he told the same newspaper he'd spoken with 15 months earlier that the Lord had intervened to absolve him of his pledge. He said that his actions could be characterized as breaking a pledge, but he explained that whether he would run for a fourth term was going to be decided by God and that by putting it in God's hands he hoped he was doing what God wanted. It took the Lord less than eight months to decide what Tom should do. In April 2002, he (Tom--not the Lord) announced that he was no longer bound by his pledge to serve no more than three terms and he went on to serve a total of five terms.

Focus on immigration and a war against radical Islam

A: I would free Ramos and Compean. I would make sure that we begin the process of securing those borders and enforcing the law inside the US against hiring people who are here illegally. I would use that bully pulpit that the governor talked about and is absolutely accurate in terms of the importance of it for a president of the US for this reason, to explain that it is in fact a war is not going on in Iraq; that’s a battle. We are fighting a war against radical Islam.

No representation for DC; to do so, give it back to MD & VA

A: The District of Columbia. It is not a state and, therefore, not entitled to representation as a state. If the country desires that DC have that kind of representation, then the district should be split up, and the portion that was ceded to the federal government by Virginia should go back to Virginia, the portion that was ceded by Maryland should go back to Maryland. Then they would be represented by states.

Ok to require valid ID for voting

A: It is really not that difficult to obtain a valid ID. And I don’t think that we’re asking too much of people when they’re doing something that is one of the most sacred duties in this society, to actually show that they are the person who they say they are. You can get a photo ID without even needing a driver’s license. You can get a state ID relatively easily.

Ok if church identifies candidates who favor its principles

• HUCKABEE: Yes.
• TANCREDO: Yes.
• COX: Yes. Let’s get rid of the entire IRS while we’re at it.
• BROWNBACK: Yes.
• PAUL: Yes.
• HUNTER: Yes.
• KEYES: Yes.

Voted NO on requiring 527s to disclose donors & activities

Synopsis: Vote to pass a bill that requires political organizations known as 527 organizations to disclose their political activities. A 527 organization falls under Section 527 of the tax code.

Highlights:
• Requires 527 groups that raise over $25,000 per year to disclose donors and to report contributions of at least $200 and spending of at least $500 to the Federal Election Commission (FEC)
• Requires new 527 groups to report their establishment within 24 hours to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
• Penalizes 527 groups that do not make contributions and expenditures available to the public once the bill goes into effect
• Allows existing 527 groups 30 days after the law’s enactment to disclose information

House Passage Vote: 06/28/2000:
Passed: 385-39 (Roll no. 341).

Voted YES on requiring lobbyist disclosure of bundled donations.

1. file a quarterly report with Congress; and
2. notify the recipient.

Proponents support voting YES because:

This measure will more effectively regulate, but does not ban, the practice of registered lobbyists bundling together large numbers of campaign contributions. This is a practice that has already taken root in Presidential campaigns. "Bundling" contributions which the lobbyist physically receives and forwards to the candidate, or which are credited to the lobbyist through a specific tracking system put in place by the candidate. This bill requires quarterly reporting on bundled contributions.

We ultimately need to move to assist the public financing of campaigns, as soon as we can. But until we do, the legislation today represents an extremely important step forward.

Opponents support voting NO because:

This legislation does not require that bundled contributions to political action committees, often referred to as PACs, be disclosed. Why are PACs omitted from the disclosure requirements in this legislation?

If we are requiring the disclosure of bundled contributions to political party committees, those same disclosure rules should also apply to contributions to PACs. Party committees represent all members of that party affiliation. PACs, on the other hand, represent more narrow, special interests. Why should the former be exposed to more sunshine, but not the latter?

The fact that PACs give more money to Democrats is not the only answer. Time and again the majority party picks favorites, when what the American people want is more honesty and more accountability.

Voted NO on granting Washington DC an Electoral vote & vote in Congress.

Proponents support voting YES because:

This bill corrects a 200-year-old oversight by restoring to the citizens of the District of Columbia the right to elect a Member of the House of Representatives who has the same voting rights as all other Members.

Residents of D.C. serve in the military. They pay Federal taxes each year. Yet they are denied the basic right of full representation in the House of Representatives.

The District of Columbia was created to prevent any State from unduly influencing the operations of the Federal Government. However, there is simply no evidence that the Framers of the Constitution thought it was necessary to keep D.C. residents from being represented in the House by a voting Member.

Opponents support voting NO because:

The proponents of this bill in 1978 believed that the way to allow D.C. representation was to ratify a constitutional amendment. The Founders of the country had the debate at that time: Should we give D.C. a Representative? They said no. So if you want to fix it, you do it by making a constitutional amendment.

Alternatively, we simply could have solved the D.C. representation problem by retroceding, by giving back part of D.C. to Maryland. There is precedent for this. In 1846, Congress took that perfectly legal step of returning present-day Arlington to the State of Virginia.

Voted NO on protecting whistleblowers from employer recrimination.

Proponents support voting YES because:

This bill would strengthen one of our most important weapons against waste, fraud and abuse, and that is Federal whistleblower protections. Federal employees are on the inside and offer accountability. They can see where there is waste going on or if there is corruption going on.

One of the most important provisions protects national security whistleblowers. There are a lot of Federal officials who knew the intelligence on Iraq was wrong. But none of these officials could come forward. If they did, they could have been stripped of their security clearances, or they could have been fired. Nobody blew the whistle on the phony intelligence that got us into the Iraq war.

Opponents support voting NO because:

It is important that personnel within the intelligence community have appropriate opportunities to bring matters to Congress so long as the mechanisms to do so safeguard highly sensitive classified information and programs. The bill before us suffers from a number of problems:

1. The bill would conflict with the provisions of the existing Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998, which protecting sensitive national security information from unauthorized disclosure to persons not entitled to receive it.
2. The bill violates the rules of the House by encouraging intelligence community personnel to report highly sensitive intelligence matters to committees other than the Intelligence Committees. The real issue is one of protecting highly classified intelligence programs and ensuring that any oversight is conducted by Members with the appropriate experiences, expertise, and clearances.
3. This bill would make every claim of a self-described whistleblower, whether meritorious or not, subject to extended and protracted litigation.

Voted YES on requiring photo ID for voting in federal elections.

Proponents support voting YES because:

The election system is the bedrock that our Republic is built on and its security and oversight is of paramount concern. Only US citizens have the right to vote in Federal elections, but our current system does not give State election officials the tools they need to ensure that this requirement is being met.

This bill is designed to increase participation by ensuring that each legitimate vote will be counted and not be diluted by fraud. There are many elections in this country every cycle that are decided by just a handful of votes. How can we be certain that these elections, without measures to certify the identity of voters, are not being decided by fraudulent votes?

Opponents support voting NO because:

There is something we can all agree on: only Americans get to vote, and they only get to vote once. But what we are talking about in this bill is disenfranchising many of those Americans. It is already a felony for a non-American to vote. We had hearings and what we found out was that the issue of illegal aliens voting basically does not occur.

The impact of this will disproportionately affect poor people and African Americans, because many are too poor to have a car and they do not have a license. We have no evidence there is a problem. We have ample evidence that this will disenfranchise many Americans. This is the measure to disenfranchise African Americans, Native Americans. It is wrong and we will not stand for it.

Voted YES on restricting independent grassroots political committees.