As we’ve shown you here and here Roger Wicker seems determined to whitewash his record of failing the Coast. This is example #5 of how Roger Wicker failed our Gulf Coast and why for showing such lack of foresight he should not be allowed to serve as one of Mississippi’s United States Senators.
Roger Wicker opposed starting an independent Katrina commission to find out what exactly went wrong so that we might be better prepared in the future.
In September 2005, Wicker voted against establishing an independent commission to study the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, similar to the 9/11 Commission.
Update: He did support a commission (as pointed out in the comments), but only one selected solely by Republicans. Therefore, he opposed an independent commission, like the 9/11 Commission that featured strong Democrats in addition to strong Republicans.
Roger Wicker is no “longtime friend of the Gulf Coast” as he claimed in his first ad.
If you’ve got a suggestion on why Roger Wicker is bad for Mississippi in general or bad for the Coast specifically please e-mail us at cottonmouthblog AT gmail DOT com or leave a comment.
Serving as a Truth Squad for you is starting to become a full time job. Sen. Wicker voted, along with Gene Taylor and Chip Pickering, to establish a bipartisan committee to investigate the preparation and response to Hurricane Katrina (H Res 437). This is in addition to the millions of dollars he shepherded through the House working with Sen. Cochran on the Senate side. Anyone that says Sen Wicker didn't step up after Katrina is the one who's white washing the facts.
ReplyDeleteYou definitely made me go back and look at my research but the point stands.
ReplyDeleteWicker supported a highly partisan “investigative panel” whose members were to be chosen by the Republican Speaker of the House.
There were amendments prepared to make the commission truly independent (more of a 9/11 commission), but the Republicans voted unanimously (with Wicker’s help) to have only one hour of debate on the bill and no amendments offered.
Wicker supported a commission but it was not an “independent” commission and he supported actions to block even a vote on an independent commission.
You mean to indicate that Rep. Taylor supported the resolution.
Taylor actually opposed the resolution leading up to the final vote but he felt like he had to vote for any commission no matter how bad.
Read his and Rep. Bennie Thompson's speeches on the subject below:
Representative Gene Taylor:
ReplyDeleteMadam Speaker, I recently heard the gentleman who represents Hollywood speaking about how it is somehow fair that the only Member of this body that I know of who was there on Ground Zero, who rode with the National Guard to distribute food because FEMA so thoroughly screwed up, who realizes that if it were not for the United States military doing FEMA's job for them, people would have starved to death, people would have died of dehydration, hospitals would not have gotten needed medical supplies, that I will not be allowed to subpoena witnesses.
So as a Member of this body who was elected by as good a margin as anyone else here, I do object that I could not ask for a witness, that I could not subpoena a witness to deliver the message that needs to be delivered about the lessons learned in Mississippi. We do not need to make the same mistakes when the next hurricane hits.
The bottom line is FEMA did make horrible mistakes that came very close to costing people their lives. FEMA could have avoided millions of dollars in unnecessary aerial replenishment of people that we could get trucks to, because they insisted on one point of delivery in a county where very few people still had cars that were running and those that had cars that ran could not get gasoline.
FEMA could have sent thousands of people on their way to their families in other parts of the State, but did not bring gasoline in for them. There are a number of mistakes that we never need to make again as a Nation. And I would hope that I would have the opportunity to subpoena some of the people that need to speak on this. It does not need to be Bush-bashing; it does not need to be anybody-bashing. It needs to be an honest account of what happened.
But how can we do that when one of the people that was at Ground Zero cannot ask questions of witnesses, cannot subpoena witnesses? Is that really fair? Does that really get to the solution of the problem? I do not think so. I think our Nation works best when we work together, and a 9/11-type commission composed of whoever needs to be subpoenaed is what we need to do.
At the end of the day, I am going to vote for a commission no matter how bad, because something is better than nothing; but the American people deserve for us to do it right.
At the end of the day, I am going to vote for a commission no matter how bad, because something is better than nothing;
ReplyDeleteThat's not a particularly ringing endorsement.
Representative Bennie Thompson:
ReplyDeleteMr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to House Resolution 437. This resolution puts a partisan congressional committee in charge of the investigation.
The rule that has been offered does not allow for meaningful debate. It also does not allow for an amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) that would create an independent commission to investigate this catastrophe. I am also an original cosponsor of that amendment. Letting Congress investigate the government failures of Hurricane Katrina is like letting the fox guard the hen house. We are not protecting what we need to protect, and there will be a lot more questions than answers in the end.
More than ever, the last 2 weeks have shown that we need an independent assessment of what happened. Where did the Federal Government go wrong? What could the State and locals have done better? What happened to citizens' preparedness?
In my role as ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, I have looked for answers and have tried to put together a timeline of events. I am submitting with my statement today for the RECORD a timeline that the staff of the committee has put together for me showing what happened compiled from public sources. This document shows the complexity of the issues and the need for an independent assessment of what happened.
I do not understand the opposition from the other side of the aisle against creating an independent commission that the American people have asked for. It was done, with opposition from Republicans, after 9/11; it was done after Pearl Harbor; and after the Khobar Towers terrorist attacks. We have always had it. Indeed, the type of commission proposed by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) and others has historically been used after large events that affect the country. Why not here? What does Congress want to protect? What is Congress trying to hide?
After 9/11, Congress did the right thing. On September 20, they sent the largest contingent ever to travel to New York City to view the devastation of the World Trade Center and console the families of the victims. It has been nearly 3 weeks since Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf Coast, and there have been no official congressional delegations to the region.
Mr. Speaker, what do we have to hide? Indeed, I have twice requested the Committee on Homeland Security to travel to the area and was refused. I was told that it did not make good sense for Congress to go down and conduct oversight and fact-finding missions at the time. Yet we went to New York, but now we cannot go to my area of the country.
Now we want Congress to take charge of this investigation. For the good of the Nation, let us put aside partisan politics and not create a strawman committee. I encourage a vote against the rule so we can consider the independent commission option, give it a vote and let the American people know we are listening to their requests.