I have a hard time motivating myself to call and write Oklahoma legislators on issues, because they are so reliably hard-line awful, and I’m already depressed, so who needs the hassle…
Nonetheless, I called my Congressperson, Frank Lucas, on S-CHIP — twice.
So here’s what happened.
The first time, last week, I called the Yukon office and just said I hoped that he would change his vote. The woman I spoke with was polite, but didn’t seem to have a clue what I was talking about, just couldn’t seem to comprehend that I lived in Oklahoma and supported the program being expanded.
Sigh.
So then, today, I call the DC office. I get a male aide and I ask him if Lucas has decided how he will vote on the override.
He has to go check. Great, obviously the whole staff is brimming over with conservative compassion and really keeping up on this issue.
Anyway, he comes back and says Lucas is voting “no” because he likes the way the Republicans originally wrote the bill and doesn’t believe more children should be covered.
I say without the veto being overridden, in fact next year LESS children will be covered than now.
He says that Lucas thinks that only POOR children should be covered.
I say that the program was not designed for poor children, that it was designed to cover MIDDLE CLASS children and his argument was thus facetious.
“Well, thank you for calling.”
Cross-posted at Blue Oklahoma, where I also included a snarky poll.