On July 1rst, GT voted with 141 of his Republican colleagues and 11 Democrats against the restoration of emergency unemployment compensation. Fortunately, 241 Democrats and 29 Republicans voted in favor of the bill. Unfortunately, the Republicans in the Senate successfully blocked the bill from coming to a vote. So the long term unemployed sit this summer in limbo.
GT, so far as I know, has not explained the reasoning behind this vote, but it is clear from the table below that he; owes many of his constituents an explanation. While the Pennsylvania Fifth Congressional District is home to Centre County the Pennsylvania county with the lowest May 2010 unemployment rate, 6.5%, it is also home to Cameron County the Pennsylvania County with the highest unemployment rate,14.8%. In fact, of the seventeen counties which are in, or part of which are in, the 5th 11 are above the median of the county rates and 15 are above the overall Pennsylvania rate of 9.1%. Further, the unemployment rates increased from April 2010 in all of the counties in the 5th with the exception of Cameron which decreased from 15% in April. But that was likely due to people dropping out of the workforce. So the employment situation in GT's district is bad and many of his constituents will be hurt by the action of Republican colleagues in the Senate. An action which his vote shows that he supports.
So why did GT vote to screw his constituents? There are several possible answers which I will explore in a future post.
