She was elected in 1996, and is serving her 8th full term in Congress. She believes her mission in life is to solve world hunger—whether its through foreign aid or food stamps here in this country that we can no longer afford. But if people start eating too much, well hold it right it there, because the federal government has a role in controlling obesity too. She will subsidize anything. Tobacco, sugar, peanuts, milk, mohair, energy, Fannie and Freddie, the Postal Service, the DC metro system, small businesses, and the purchases of auto consumers (Cash for Clunkers). Increasing the minimum wage? She is a fan. Price controls on prescription drugs? She co-sponsored the bill. Davis-Bacon? She supports it.She has voted the wrong way on almost every big bill that her party got wrong on principle since coming to Congress: No Child Left Behind, Sarbanes-Oxley, Medicare Part D, TARP (twice), multiple farms bills, multiple highway bills, SCHIP, etc. She wants to tax the internet, voting not to extend the moratorium on internet taxation. She wants oil and gas companies to pay more in taxes and be treated differently than other companies. She is an appropriator, and a “cardinal” who chairs a subcommittee. She opposed comprehensive reforms to improve a budget process geared to spend. She opposed the line-item veto. She opposed a cap on entitlement spending even though appropriators are notorious for arguing that discretionary spending isn’t the problem, just exploding entitlements. She supported none of the Hefley 1% cuts. She has never supported a budget offered by the conservative Republican Study Committee. In casting over a hundred votes on whether to cut special-interest earmarks out of spending bills, I can literally find only two example where she was willing to support such an amendment. Both were this year. One was John Murtha’s National Drug Intelligence Center that has become controversial, causing her to flip her earlier support. And the other was to reinstate an earmark for Alaska’s Don Young, which probably had more to do with sticking with her appropriators who wrote the bill than anything. But these exceptions run up hard against the rest of her earmark votes: a Johnstown industry “incubator” (another Murtha earmark), a West Virginia research corporation, a planning and urban research in San Francisco, the infamous Charlie Rangel center, a Wisconsin regional planning commission, among many. As late as FY 2010, at the peak of outrage over earmarks, she was still funneling $30 million in earmarks being included in various bills, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. She currently scores a 49% on the Heritage Action scorecard. No boys and girls. She is not Carolyn Maloney from NYC, Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco or Jan Schakowsky from Illinois. She represents a +15 GOP district that voted for George Bush and John McCain for president by 63% and 62% respectively. She is now the chairman of the remaining Republican liberals in the House, the Tuesday Group. She is Jo Ann Emerson, and she represents Missouri’s 8th district. She needs to be primaried.