Heh. So my friend Rock has a piece up this morning, presumably right below this one, with a call-out.

But what I am surprised about is the curt e-mail from my white Parisian cousin over at the Daily Gotham blog, admonishing me not to go “overboard” with my candidate (Ed Towns). Michael “Frenchie” Bouldin says that he hates to pick political fights on the blogs, and yet he throws these lil pit-a-pat punches when something is on his mind. So Michael: tell us how you really feel about this race in the 10th congressional. Why; the cat got your pen?

Okay then - callout. Smackdown!

The answer is really very simple: I send terse emails all the time. It's a time-management issue. The email I sent was to the effect that I detect a gap between Rock's supine hagiography of Towns and the legislator I know, the one who voted for the bankruptcy bill, the one who's missed over 10% of all votes since 1993, the guy who tried to declare India a terrorist state, who voted for CAFTA and against net neutrality, the latter presumably not because he understand the issues involved, but because his coffers overflow with checks from the telecom lobby. Towns even refused outright to take Project VoteSmart's Political Courage Test. While we're at it, he even voted against ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would establish the right to not be fired because you're gay on a national level.

It's difficult to choose Ed Towns' worst vote out of the smorgasbord of failures in the House. Is it the one for the bankruptcy bill, the one that, in a relatively poor district, makes it next to impossible to ever get out of debt? Is that what the residents of New York's Tenth wanted, or needed? I'm not so sure, but I do know that Ed Towns got tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from banking and credit card industries, who have made billions from the law, at the expense of ordinary citizens burdened by a law that falls disproportionately on the shoulders of the poor.

Another contender - this could be a parlor game, come to think of it: what's Ed Towns worst vote? - is his support of the republican repeal of the estate tax. Kind of difficult to see how that helps the residents of a district with, on average, only three quarters of national income, isn't it? In the 1999 Census, 25.8% of district residents were in poverty, compared to 9.2% nationally - so yes, clearly, what they need is the abolition of taxes on multi-million dollar inheritances. Thanks to Ed Towns, that's what they got.

Or take CAFTA, the expansion of NAFTA to Central America - because NAFTA worked so well that the best thing we could do was expand it. Towns was one of only fifteen Democrats to support it, and cast the deciding vote that helped this jobs-destroying monstrosity become law. Yes, again, what the Tenth District really needs is legislation guaranteed, and intended, to destroy low-skilled jobs in the United States - because the residents can just train up to become investment bankers, I guess. I seem to have missed the citizen movement in the Tenth calling on Ed Towns to ship the residents' jobs south of the border, or maybe I'm confusing that with the fat lobbyist checks the Congressman hoovers in.

From my perspective as a blogger, I'd submit Towns' votes on net neutrality as a contender.
I'd guess that Towns hasn't really penetrated that issue. Let me just quote Matt Stoller:

Right now your broadband ISP isn't really allowed to block legal web sites or services to their customers. A law that passed in a House Committee today lets them. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist. Pretty soon your broadband provider will be allowed to block Google, Vonage, or your favorite blog if a competitor pays them, if they develop a competing service, or if they just don't like you. This sort of undermines the whole internet thing, and I'm fighting against it.

Who voted for that stinking pile of poop, the law that lets your service provider determine, for a fee, what you can access on the internet depending on who pays your provider the most? That's right, Ed Towns, internet all-star. Chalk up another vote with the check-writers - Towns got $22,000 in contributions from Big Telecom - and against his constituents' interest, because here's a hint: if you want to start a small business, you need a free and open internet. And there's just no better way to get out of poverty than starting your own business. Too bad Ed Towns isn't on board with that, I guess.

In its 2006 endorsement of Towns, the Brooklyn Paper writes:

We reluctantly endorse the latter: the lackluster incumbent, Rep. Ed Towns, over his spirited challenger, City Councilman Charles Barron.

Towns, who has been in office since 1982, has a thin record of achievement. He often votes with the Republican majority — as he did on the estate tax cut, a punitive bankruptcy bill, and President Bush’s energy policy — and against the apparent interests of his constituents.

Now mind you, that's an endorsement.

So yes, I do have issues with Kevin Powell. But is it worthwhile to challenge Towns? Is he a legislator who regularly sides with the check-writers on K Street over the best interests of his district? Yes, absolutely. So while I'm not on board the Powell train, am I happy Towns is being discomfited? Damn right I am.

So really, it's simply not the case that either myself or anyone else needs to lay out a position on this race. Rather, Rock needs to explain why it is exactly that Towns history of voting against the economic interests of his district is worthy of being prolonged.

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