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March 14, 2007
He’s suffered four heart attacks over the past 22 years*, but that hasn’t stopped him from building a voting record that makes you wonder if the problem might be that his heart is missing altogether.
In 1985, in the U.S. House of Representatives Cheney voted against a ban on private citizens owning armor-piercing bullets and against a ban on plastic guns. He supported aid for anti-Marxist rebels in Nicaragua and funding for the “Star Wars” anti-missile shield.
He voted against refunding the Clean Water Act and voted to postpone sanctions against air polluters who failed to meet pollution standards. He voted against a law that would require oil and chemical industries to allow public inspection of their emissions records, and he supported tax breaks for energy corporations.
Cheney cosponsored a bill that would restrict federal jurisdiction over the discharge of dredged or fill material into navigable waters. He also voted for a 1987 bill that designated Yucca Mountain, Nevada as the only site to be studied for storing all of the nation’s nuclear waste.
He opposed federal funding of abortions even in cases where a woman was raped or a victim of incest, and he argued in favor of placing a cap on cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients.
He voted in 1979 against making Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday and opposed extending the Civil Rights Act.
In 1986, Cheney voted against a resolution demanding that the South African government release Nelson Mandela from prison, saying later that he opposed the resolution because the ANC “... at the time was viewed as a terrorist organization and had a number of interests that were fundamentally inimical to the United States.”
A firm believer in our Constitutional right to bear arms, Cheney was one of just 21 members of Congress to vote against a 1985 ban on armor-piercing bullets. In 1988 Cheney was one of just four House members to vote against a ban on plastic guns that can pass through airport security machines undetected. Even the National Rifle Association decided that there was no legitimate need for plastic guns in the hands of the citizenry and supported that ban, but Cheney has always opposed restrictions on the sale and possession of weapons.
Despite repeating every politician’s mantra of always supporting the troops, Cheney repeatedly voted against funding for the Veterans Administration.
He’s a strong defender of public access to our National Parks, voting over the years to allow skiing, snowmobiling, hunting, trapping, oil and gas development and production, and the leasing of geothermal and mineral lands within the parks.
Although President Bush has spoken many times of expanding the Head Start program for children and moving it into the Dept. of Education, Cheney voted against Head Start funding in 1986. In fact, he voted against the creation of the Dept. of Education in the first place, calling it “an encroachment on states’ rights.” Cheney reversed his long-held position once he became Bush’s vice president in 2000.
During the Iran-Contra controversy in the late 1980s, he served on the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Deals with Iran. Cheney disagreed with the majority findings, defended the Reagan administration and supported Lt. Col. Oliver North.
He did so despite the fact that North’s own diaries tied him directly to a cocaine smuggling operation of amounts up to four tons a month along with the illegal sale of military weapons to Iran. Cheney later endorsed North’s unsuccessful campaign for the Virginia Senate seat in 1994.
**In 1978, Cheney was elected to represent Wyoming in the House of Representatives despite suffering his first heart attack during the primary campaign. Three more attacks followed, in 1984, 1988 and 2000. He underwent an artery bypass graft in 1988, had artery stenting in 2000 and a balloon angioplasty in 2001.
White House doctors say that his atherosclerotic disease is progressing. Cheney occasionally uses a cane when walking, he says, due to an unnamed “foot condition” that is unrelated to his cardiovascular problems.
Rob Lafferty
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