Differences Between Fallon & Boswell

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FALLON AND BOSWELL
May 12, 2008

THE IRAQ WAR
Fallon will vote to end the war in Iraq. He also opposes any permanent military bases in Iraq. He has endorsed “A Responsible Plan to End the War.”
• Boswell voted to authorize using military force in Iraq (10/10/02), which House Democrats opposed 126-81.
• Boswell voted against setting a date for withdrawal or redeployment of US troops as not being in our national security interests (Resolution on 06/12/06).
• Boswell voted to authorize funding for the war without timelines for troop withdrawals. Last May 10th, he voted against H.R. 2237 (containing a timetable for partial withdrawal, 05/10/07), which House Democrats supported 169-59, and for H.R. 2206 (that did not contain a timetable).

THE PATRIOT ACT  AND WARRANTLESS WIRETAPPING
Fallon agrees with many critics that the PATRIOT Act has been too sweeping in its granting of new police powers to the government and, as a result, infringes on the civil rights and liberties of Americans. He also opposes giving immunity to telecom companies.
• Boswell voted for the PATRIOT Act (10/24/01) and voted to reauthorize it, which House Democrats opposed by a margin of 155-44 (H.R. 3199, 12/14/05).
• Boswell voted for the Protect America Act that allows warantless surveillance. House Democrats, including Iowa Reps. Braley and Loebsack, opposed it by a margin of 181-41 (S. 1927, 08/04/07).
• Boswell supports Bush’s demand for immunity for telecom companies such as AT&T, from whom Boswell took $5,000 in campaign donations last year. He recently voted for the House version, H.R. 3773, once he was satisfied that there were sufficient protections for the telecom companies.

TORTURE
Fallon opposes the use of torture and the practice of extraordinary rendition.
• Boswell voted for the Military Commissions Act (S.3930, 09/27/06), which gave Bush the ultimate authority to determine which interrogation techniques qualify as ‘torture.’ 82% of House Democrats voted against it.
• Boswell did not cosponsor H.R. 952, which would have ended the practice of ‘extraordinary rendition,’ whereby the Bush Administration would transfer prisoners to other countries to be tortured.

MONEY FROM PACS AND LOBBYISTS
In Fallon’s fourteen years as a state representative and when he ran for governor, Ed refused donations from PACs and lobbyists, and he doesn’t accept them in his Congressional campaign.
• In Boswell’s seven campaigns for Congress, his largest source of contributions has always been PACs. Last year alone, 74% of the $722,327 he raised came from PACs. Of the 322 PAC contributions he received last year, 302 of them (96%) were from out of state, and the largest percentage came from corporate PACs. 

SOFT MONEY BAN
Fallon favors voluntary public financing of campaigns to eliminate the influence of special interest money in politics.
• Boswell voted against H.R. 2356 (07/12/01) that would have banned soft money donations to national political parties.
• While Boswell voted for a similar ban the next year (07/12/01), this time the bill included doubling the individual contribution limit from $1,000 to $2,000 and indexing it for inflation.

“FAST-TRACK” AUTHORITY AND “FREE TRADE” AGREEMENTS
Fallon supports fair trade policies that protect workers, and opposes NAFTA-like trade agreements.
• Boswell voted for fast-track authority for trade agreements (H.R. 2621, 09/25/98), the Peru Trade Agreement (H.R. 3688, 09/25/98), the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (H.R. 2739, 06/27/03), and the US-Chile Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (H.R. 2738, 06/27/03).
• Labor and environmental groups opposed these trade agreements because, as with NAFTA, they send American jobs overseas, increase our trade deficit, fail to address the rights of foreign workers, and harm the environment.  
• Boswell voted for permanent normal trade relations with China, which House Democrats opposed 138-73 (H.R. 4444, 05/24/00).

TAX BREAKS FOR BIG OIL AND GAS COMPANIES
Fallon has worked to end government handouts to big business and will vote against these kind of giveaways in Congress.
• Boswell voted for $14.5 billion in tax breaks and incentives for energy companies (H.R.6, 07/28/05). House Democrats opposed this bill 124-75.
• The big winners were companies such as Exxon Mobil. Just before the House passed the bill, Exxon Mobil announced second-quarter profits of $7.64 billion, making its most recent three quarters that year the most profitable in the company’s history. This year, Exxon Mobil posted new record earnings – the most profitable quarter ever for an American company ($11.7 billion) and the most profitable year ever for an American company ($40.6 billion).

CAFE STANDARDS FOR GAS MILEAGE
Fallon believes that raising CAFE standards to 40 mpg is central to solving the global climate change crisis.
• Boswell voted against an amendment to H.R. 4 (08/01/01) that would have raised Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards for cars and light trucks to 27.5 mpg beginning in 2007.

OFFSHORE DRILLING FOR OIL AND NATURAL GAS
Fallon opposes offshore drilling and wants to help move America beyond reliance on fossil fuels.
• Boswell voted to end a 25-year moratorium on drilling for oil offshore (H.R. 4761, 06/29/06), threatening our ecologically sensitive coastal areas, which House Democrats opposed155-40.
• Boswell voted for an amendment to permit offshore drilling for natural gas (Peterson Amendment to H.R. 2643, 06/27/07), which House Democrats opposed 194-38.

GREATER USE OF COAL
Fallon supports a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants and has been a leader in efforts at the state level to fight global climate change.
• Boswell signed a letter to the House Speaker and Majority Leader (02/16/07) calling for legislation to support continued use of coal “for decades to come.”

FACTORY HOG CONFINEMENTS
Fallon, as member of the Iowa House Agriculture Committee, helped lead the charge against HF 519, bill in 1995. The bill changed Iowa law to enable a drastic shift in hog production from family farms to corporate giants such as Iowa Select, DeCoster, Murphy, and Premium Standard.
• In 1995, as President of the Iowa Senate, Boswell helped pass HF 519, which most House Democrats opposed.

OTHER ANTI-ENVIRONMENT VOTES
Fallon would have voted with the majority of House Democrats on a number of bills affecting the environment – bills on which Boswell split from House Democrats and voted with the Republicans.
• Boswell voted against an amendment to prevent the expediting of oil shale drilling throughout the Intermountain West that would have allowed time for researching the impact of that drilling on water, air, and wildlife (Udall Amendment to H.R. 2643, 07/27/07). House Democrats supported the amendment 202-27.
• Boswell voted against an amendment to prohibit funds from being used for private harvesting of timber in the Tongass National Forest (Andrews Amendment to H.R. 2643, 06/26/07). House Democrats supported the amendment 211-20.
• Boswell voted against barring federal funds from being used to convince children that burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain (only 90 miles from Las Vegas) is safe (Amendment 0008 to H.R. 5427, 05/24/06). House Democrats voted 135-60 to bar such spending.
• Boswell voted against grasslands protection (Cooper Amendment to H.R. 2419, 07/27/07), which a majority of House Democrats supported.

COMMON SENSE BUDGET ACT
Fallon has been a supporter of the Iowans for Sensible Priorities (ISP) campaign since it began in late 2005. Over 10,000 Iowans pledged to caucus in January for candidates who supported ISP’s goal of shifting 15% of the current Pentagon budget from expensive, unneeded weapons systems into other priorities such as education, health care, renewable energy, and international humanitarian assistance. This proposal has strong support in Iowa. Polling indicated that 63% of Iowans and 92% of Iowa Democrats support this idea.
• ISP’s proposal was introduced in the U.S. House as the Common Sense Budget Act of 2007 (H.R. 1702). Fallon is pledged to cosponsor the bill.
• Boswell has refused to support the bill.

EARMARKS
Ed Fallon supports the abolition of earmarks. He has committed himself not to seek, support, or enact earmarks.
• Earmarks are a budgetary scandal, whether they are used to build a $320 million ‘bridge to nowhere’ in Alaska or a $44.5 million rainforest here in Iowa.
• Among the many earmarks he requested, Boswell secured $510,000 for the northeast Polk County beltway a few years ago, against the interests of local farmers and landowners.
• While the Democratic Congress passed a reform measure last year requiring some transparency, last year there were still over 12,881 earmarks. That represents an increase of over 1000% from 1996, when there were only 958.

THE FRANKING PRIVILEGE
As a state lawmaker, Fallon led the way on a number of good-government reforms. As a Congressman he will work to prevent the abuse of franking privileges.
• Boswell’s use of the franking privilege is questionable. In February and March of this year, he sent out three taxpayer-funded mailings touting his record on the environment, health care, and the economy. The mailings piece look more like campaign ads than informational messages for constituents.

SUPERDELEGATES
Superdelegates make up roughly 20% of delegates to the Democratic national convention. They are a throwback to the days of backroom, closed-door politics, when party bosses and not the people chose the winner.
Fallon wants to eliminate superdelegates altogether, or at least guarantee that their votes don’t subvert the majority or plurality of pledged delegates at a convention.
• Boswell supports the status quo, saying superdelegates are “not intended to reflect voter sentiment,” and reaffirming his intention to vote for Clinton, even though she didn’t win a single county in the 3rd District. [Des Moines Register, February 10, 2008, page 6B]

BANKRUPTCY “REFORM”
Fallon favors reforming bankruptcy law to help consumers who are struggling with debt, not credit card companies trying to maximize profits.
• Boswell joined Republicans to pass the 2005 Bankruptcy Act (S.256), while 63% of Democrats voted against it (4/14/05). 
• Retired bankruptcy judges, consumer advocates, legal scholars, and others criticized the bill. The bill’s provisions favored credit card companies, which spent more than $100 million lobbying for it.

THE ESTATE TAX
Fallon opposes eliminating the estate tax and voted against similar legislation as a state lawmaker.
• Boswell voted to eliminate the estate tax (H.R. 8, 09/07/00). House Democrats opposed this 155-53. He voted again to eliminate the estate tax (H.R. 8, 04/13/05). House Democrats opposed this 160-42.
• The attempt to eliminate the federal estate tax has been the result of a lobbying campaign financed by 18 of the richest families in America (worth a total fortune of $185 billion) who, as a result, wouldn’t have to pay $71 billion in taxes.
• The bill was portrayed as helping family farmers and small businesses, but this was misleading. Current law provides that only estates exceeding $4 million for a couple would be taxed, and that amount rises to $7 million next year. Over the next ten years, repealing the estate tax would shift almost a trillion dollars to other taxpayers.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS FOR SENIORS
Fallon supports taking the profit out of the prescription drug plans for seniors by running the program like the rest of Medicare.
•    Boswell was the deciding vote in favor of the Bush Administration's for-profit plan. Democrats opposed H.R. 1 by a margin of 195-9, and the bill passed by one vote – 216-215. Had Boswell voted with Democrats, the Bush pan would have been defeated. (RC 332 on 06/27/03)

“STAR WARS”: THE NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE PROGRAM
Fallon would vote against funding for the National Missile Defense Program (NMD), and prior to serving as a state legislator, he worked with local organizations to oppose the similar “Star Wars” system during the Reagan Administration.
• The NMD system is a financial boondoggle. Tests of NMD systems have proven them to be ineffective. September 11th demonstrated that terrorists can strike effectively within our borders, and homeland security dollars are best spent, for example, on making our ports more secure.
• Boswell voted for the NMD program (H.R. 4, 03/18/99).

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND (NCLB)
Fallon opposed NCLB from the start. He will work for either a major overhaul or scrapping it altogether.
• Educators and teachers alike agree that NCLB is a burden to teachers and students that promotes testing over education.
• Boswell voted for NCLB (H.R. 1, 12/13/01).

IMMIGRATION REFORM
Fallon supports realistic, comprehensive immigration reform.
• In 2005 Boswell voted for a harsh and ineffective Republican bill, the ‘Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act,’ which House Democrats opposed 164-36 (12/16/05).