Northwest Missouri Rep. Sam Graves has announced several listening-tour stops around the 6th district as a part of his “Main Street Matters Listening Tour”. According to a press release on his website, Rep. Graves will be discussing the issues that Congress has dealt with this session, including the Stimulus, Cap and Trade and Health Care Reform. As Ranking Member on the House Small Business Committee Graves has a particular interest in how the Obama/Pelosi policies will affect small businesses in Northwest Missouri.
Graves town hall meetings will most likely prove to be less exciting than the townhalls that have dominated the news cycle lately. This is mainly due to the fact the Sam Graves represents his constituents and their values and has consistently voted against the liberal policies that the citizens of his district strongly oppose. Graves has voted against all of the government bailouts, he voted against Cap and Trade and has vigerously opposed the Democrats healthcare and their “public option” that would lead to the end of private insurance. The list of stops on the listening-tour can be found at http://www.house.gov/list/press/mo06_graves/cont.shtml.
Maybe Missouri’s Claire McCaskill could learn from Graves, if you actually represent your voters they don’t feel like they must yell at you in order to be heard.
The 6th District is very privileged to have a strong representative who stands up for them in Washington. If you attend any of these listening-tour stops, please take time to thank Mr. Graves for his consistent support of Conservative values.
Below is a video showing Rep. Graves defending small business on House Floor last month.
”A proposed bill promising major changes in the U.S. abortion landscape has Roman Catholic bishops threatening to close Catholic hospitals if the Democratic Congress and White House make it law.” [Read the full article here]
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This bill called the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would make federal law out of the abortion protections established in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade ruling. The wording in the bill defines abortion as a “fundamental right” that no government can “deny” or “interfere with.” This wording would help overturn abortion restrictions such as parental notification, laws banning certain procedures and constraints on federal funding.
The legislation has Roman Catholic bishops threatening to shut down their hospitals instead of being forced to comply with the law. If this were to happen it would have a drastically negative effect on Missourians. In Missouri we have 20+ Catholic hospitals. If these hospitals were forced to close it would be devastating not only to our states healthcare but also to the job market in Missouri. According to the Catholic Hospitals Association, Catholic hospitals make up 13 percent of the country’s nearly 5,000 hospitals, employ more than 600,000 people and one of every six Americans hospitalized in the United States is cared for in a Catholic hospital.
All of this being said, MCV-PAC finds it astounding that Missouri Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay and Rep. Russ Carnahan — both St. Louis Democrats — are both co-sponsors of this legislation that will hurt all Missourians. There is a bright side though, Republican Representatives, Sam Graves, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Jo Ann Emerson, Todd Akin, and Roy Blunt all signed a letter on January 21st that called on President Obama to withdraw his pledge to sign the so-called “Freedom of Choice” Act (FOCA). That letter can be found here http://republicanleader.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=109040
“People have worked 30-some years to protect the rights of the unborn and FOCA would undo many of their efforts,” Luetkemeyer said.
MCV-PAC will keep an eye on Rep. Clay and Rep. Carnahan to see if they continue to support policies that will damage Missouri’s healthcare.
Posted by aaron