So what happened in 1994?
Sometimes when I'm working on a story and my head gets a-jumbled with all the information rattling around inside, I work backwards through to the beginning, to try and get a clear sense of the history. Then, hopefully, more will begin to fall into place.
So this morning, I pulled up the American Indian Trust Reform Management Act of 1994. It was introduced by none other than Rep. Bill Richardson (D-NM), and was passed in the House by a vote of 353 "ayes", 39 "nays", and 42 "not voting". The list of "nays" was dominated by Republicans (only 3 Dems voted against). Here are a few of the more prominant names:
Wayne Allard (R-CO)
Dick Armey (R-TX)
Bill Archer (R-TX)
Joe Barton (R-TX)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Tom Delay (R-TX)
Jack Fields (R-TX)
James Hansen (R-UT)
Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
Joel Hefley (R-CO)
Sam Johnson (R-TX)
Scott Klug (R-WI)
Rick Lazio (R-NY) (???)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Jim Sennenbrenner (R-WI)
Edward Royce (R-CA)
Dan Schaefer (R-CO)
Bob Stump (R-AZ)
Jim Talent (R-MO)
So why were so many Texans, where there were no federal Indian Trust lease lands, voting against a full accounting of the Indian Trust Fund?
Comments
"So why were so many Texans, where there were no federal Indian Trust lease lands, voting against a full accounting of the Indian Trust Fund?"
At a guess, I'd say ideology. The Texans you've cited are (or were, as Armey, Archer, and Fields are now off in the private sector) all from the tiresome "starve the beast" school of government. Certainly in 1994, when the Dems still ruled Congress, they'd have voted against just about any kind of "reform" measure that was meant to make government work better, as opposed to making it smaller. Nowadays they'd just do whatever their overlords told them to do, but that's another story.
Posted by: Charles Kuffner | January 30, 2006 02:02 PM
Charles, generally I would agree with you, but I think there's a lot more going on. Even Gingrich voted for it, as did Pombo and Doolittle. A whole bunch of very partisan Republicans voted for it, and it came in the wake of the House Banking scandal - another accounting scandal.
I think the fact that all these guys have very close ties to big oil is much more significant than their ideology - although, I'm sure the two are very intertwined. We're not talking cheap change here - $100+ billion dollars is a pile of money, even to Exxon and the like.
Posted by: MB | January 30, 2006 02:20 PM