U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is voting with the Democrats more lately.
The Salisbury Republican has broken with her party more this year than she did in 2007, according to an analysis of her voting record by The Hill, a Washington-based political paper.
Leaving out missed votes and bills that both parties favored, Dole voted against a majority of her party 25.5 percent of the time this year, versus 6.6 percent in 2007, 6.4 percent in the 2005-06 session and 4.3 percent in the 2003-04 session.
Dole was one of seven Republicans who voted for a climate-change bill, among other things:
Some of Dole’s most significant breaks with the GOP include backing a Democratic economic stimulus measure, supporting Medicare legislation that Bush vetoed, endorsing an amendment to expand children's healthcare coverage to pregnant women and voting for an expansive amendment to lengthen dwell-time for troops before they return to Iraq.
In an interview with the paper, Dole said that she is voting for what's "best for the people of my state," saying she was not moving to the middle because of the upcoming election.
Democratic opponent Kay Hagan's campaign e-mailed a link to the story to reporters.
Comments
How about a little more digging?
July 23, 2008 - 11:17am — zoobatmaniaMSNBC reported last night that Republican leaders have "allowed" their members to vote with Democrats until the election if it will help get them reelected.
I think that would be an important tidbit to include in a story like this? It makes it clear that dole is CYA, not doing what she thinks is right, what she thinks is right is straight-party votes.