Former Rep. Mike Sodrel - A Republican Re-Run

HOW SODREL RESPONDED TO HIGH ENERGY PRICES

• Sodrel voted against cracking down on the oil and gas industries' price gouging.
• Sodrel voted for the GOP energy bill that gave $14 billion in subsidies to the energy industry including $2.6 billion for Big Oil.
• Big oil and gas industries have given Sodrel $65,912. Any surprise?

GOP "HEALTH CARE"

• Big drug interests gave $51,800 to Sodrel. They know who their friends are.

TIES WITH THE GOP LEADERSHIP

• Sodrel received $15,000 from House Minority Leader John Boehner's "Freedom Project" PAC.
• Sodrel received $20,000 from GOP Whip Roy Blunt's "Rely on Your Beliefs" PAC.
• Sodrel voted with President Bush 85% of the time.
• Sodrel voted the GOP party line 96% of the time.

TIES WITH DISGRACED FORMER MAJORITY LEADER TOM DELAY
Sodrel has taken:

• $20,000 from disgraced former Majority Leader Tom DeLay's ARMPAC.

With all of these ties to the DeLay mess, is it any surprise that Sodrel has:

• Voted to weaken House ethics rules when DeLay proposed doing so as GOP Majority Leader.
• Voted with Tom DeLay 95% of the time.

SUPPORTING OUR TROOPS

• Sodrel voted to continue awarding contracts to Halliburton even if the Pentagon's own audit processes found that more than $100 million of their contractor's costs in Iraq were unreasonable. No surprise that Halliburton contributed to Sodrel.
• Sodrel opposed expanding access to the military's TRICARE health insurance program to thousands of Reservist and National Guard members, even though 20 percent of all Reservists do not have health insurance, and 40 percent of Reservists aged 19 to 35 lack health coverage.

THE ENVIRONMENT

• 1,861 water systems in 29 states have been contaminated with MTBE, exposing as many as 45 million Americans to this potential carcinogen, but Sodrel voted to protect the companies responsible from lawsuits by communities that need their help to clean up these systems.
• Sodrel voted against bipartisan reform of the Endangered Species Act.
• Sodrel voted for a massive sell off of public lands to mining interests.

HOW DID SODREL SUPPORT....

HIGHER EDUCATION?

• While tuition costs are rising for ordinary Americans, Sodrel voted to cut Federal student aid by $12.7 billion -- the biggest cuts to student aid in history.
• The average tuition at Indiana universities for the 2005-2006 school year was $6,171, up 14.5 percent from the 2004-2005 term and up 56.4 percent from four years prior.

STEM CELL RESEARCH?

• Sodrel sided with social conservatives against patients with debilitating diseases and voted against expanding Federal funding of stem cell research.

SOCIAL SECURITY?

• Sodrel voted twice to spend every penny of the Social Security trust fund.