Opposes legislation to modernize air travel

North Carolina Senator and former Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole today voted against the Aviation Investment and Modernization Act which would modernize air travel by improving air safety and enhancing passengers’ rights. Dole’s vote comes despite hundreds of flights cancelled last month due to safety problems and reports of passengers trapped on planes for hours with overflowing toilets and no food.

Opposes Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to protect victims of discrimination

Elizabeth Dole today voted against the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which would ensure that victims of pay discrimination can hold their employers accountable under existing anti-discrimination laws. Dole’s vote comes one day after Equal Pay Day, which highlights the disparity in wages between women and men – currently at 78 cents to the dollar in North Carolina.

“The last thing hardworking North Carolina families need is a paycheck further slashed by discrimination, but Elizabeth Dole passed on guaranteeing equal pay for equal work today,” DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller said. “With Elizabeth Dole’s record, it’s no wonder she voted against holding people accountable today, but that’s exactly what the voters are going to do to her in November.”

Elizabeth Dole advocates for unchecked military spending while ignoring the real needs of our country’s troops and their families.

In an editorial this week in the Washington Times, Dole dusts off her proposal to spend 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product on the military. That’s more than $560 billion.

America already spends more than 4 percent of the GDP on defense, including war costs.

American taxpayers already burdened with higher gas and food prices are spending more money on defense than any other time since World War II.

A real plan for America’s security includes spending money on the right things, on real threats and protecting our security.

Elizabeth Dole fails when it comes to representing middle class North Carolinians in the U.S. Senate.

Dole received an “F” in a national report card released Wednesday that evaluates federal legislators on how well they represent the needs and interests of the middle class in Congress. In fact, the middle class position prevailed just four out of 10 times in the Senate.

This is the third year Dole received a failing grade.

The report card comes on the heels of a recent Power Rankings poll that found that only seven of the 100 senators are less influential than Dole, a legislator formerly touted as a “political rock star”.

Dole’s votes against expanding health care for children and helping families who are facing foreclosure while voting to grant retroactive immunity to companies that illegally spied on citizens, earned her a 50 percent grade from the Drum Major Institute, a non-partisan group that issued the report card.

from the Wilmington Star News

Doleful, you might say

When North Carolinians elected native daughter Elizabeth Dole to the U.S. Senate, many of us believed we were sending an influential celebrity to represent us.

Our mistake.

Only seven of the 100 senators are less influential than Dole, according to an outfit that calculates the effectiveness of Washington Honorables. Her junior colleague, Richard Burr, ranked 69th.

To be fair, Dole spent part of her time raising money around the country to elect Republican senators. It's no wonder she didn't seem to pay a whole lot of attention to North Carolina.

But as she contemplated the possibility that someone might challenge her for re-election this year, the senator seemed to remember the Land of the Long Leaf Pine. She even decided, finally, to oppose the Navy landing field that had the northeastern part of the state in an uproar.

Between now and November, we can expect Dole to be earnestly attentive to our wants and opinions. That will be nice, but it wouldn't be reasonable to expect too much from a senator who's less influential than 93 of her colleagues.

Elizabeth Dole wants to endanger the lives of millions of families who visit America’s national parks each year.

Dole recently petitioned the Department of Interior to end a federal ban on openly carrying firearms in most national parks.

But Dole’s request is unnecessary, dangerous to visitors and potentially harmful to wildlife, park rangers say. [Time, Dec. 21]

Under the current rule, visitors can drive through a national park with a firearm as long as it’s not loaded and readily accessible. This cuts down on poaching and accidental shootings.

This isn’t about protecting Second Amendment rights. Why would someone need to carry a loaded gun in a park that doesn’t allow hunting?

This is about pandering. A recent poll shows Elizabeth Dole with an approval rating below 50 percent. As long as Liddy Dole engages in bumper sticker politics, she hopes that voters won’t notice that she isn’t in North Carolina very often.

If you got a glimpse of Elizabeth Dole this year, count yourself among the lucky few.

When it came to protecting North Carolina communities against an unwanted outlying landing field, providing health insurance for children, and taking a stand against Big Oil, Dole was missing in action.

The one place she could be found was among the thickets of Bush Republicans who sided with special interests and blocked Congress from moving forward on our top priorities.

Maybe in 2008 Dole will stop obstructing and actually deliver. Or maybe she’ll keep finding excuses for her obstruction.

Here’s a holiday list of what North Carolina families were looking for this year, and what they’ll keep demanding in the New Year.

Click here to read more.

Charlotte Observer Editorial
Lost in the panting and ranting in North Carolina over a recent simple suggestion that community colleges admit illegal immigrants is a stark truth: If this nation had a sensible federal immigration policy that secured borders and provided a path to legal status, states wouldn't have to thrash about in this way.

You can argue the details of immigration policy all you want, but you can't argue with this fact: The nation's immigration system is broken, and Washington has done nothing to fix it.

How broken is it? Our borders are like cheesecloth and we have no workable plan to deal with the fact millions of people would do almost anything to come here for a better life. We also have no practical plan for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants who already live here and are important to our economy.

Why? Federal lawmakers continue to put narrow, ideological views above reasoned compromise. Among them: Sen. Elizabeth Dole , R-N.C., whose seat comes up for election next year.

Elizabeth Dole cast the deciding vote this week against an energy reform bill that would roll back tax breaks for Big Oil to fund clean, alternative energy and increase our energy independence.

Dole, who has taken over $216,000 from the oil and gas industries, opposed the bill that would raise vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, mandate the production of more energy efficient appliances, and institute incentives for the development, production and purchase of hybrid vehicles.

Last week, Dole was part of a coalition of senators who blocked consideration of the bill, and while many reconsidered and voted for the bill today, Dole remained stubbornly opposed. The bill failed by just one vote, a ballot that could have been cast by Elizabeth Dole.

Elizabeth Dole's inaction on a key housing bill is worsening skyrocketing homelessness problem.

Today, victims of Hurricane Katrina and local advocates held a press conference at Sen. Elizabeth Dole's office in Raleigh calling on the Senator to take action to save homes in the still-devastated Gulf Coast region.

Homelessness in New Orleans has doubled since Katrina struck in August 2005, according to recent reports, and thousands of families still live in temporary FEMA housing. Yet despite a housing shortage, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has authorized the demolition of more than 4,000 units of public housing in New Orleans – most of it barely damaged by Katrina. The homes are slated to be razed this week, without provisions for replacing them with affordable units.