Talk:Maria Cantwell

"IMBRA"

Michaellovesnyc 22:55, 14 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc Why is any discussion of IMBRA considered POV? She "proudly" sponsored the bill and it has caused massive delays in processing visas and will undoubtedly increase violence against women worldwide. If women are not allowed to come to the United States where abuse is lower than in other countries, more of them will be abused and killed. This is a fact. Why is this POV? And why was it deleted without discussion? This is a violation of wikipedia policy

Well your additions contain large amounts of POV about the legislation and the Senator. It looks like you have been involved in a long edit war on the article Mail-order bride this is not really the place for ranting and edit fights about this topic.--8bitJake 23:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Unless a Senator authorized a bill, it's not particularly newsworthy that he/she was a sponsor. Some Senate bills have dozens of co-sponsors. Further, what a bill looks like when initially sponsored, and what it looks like when finally passed, can be very different things - particularly since Cantwell is and always has been in the minority (party) in the Senate (and all of Congress, for that matter). And finally, the administration and execution of a law - by the Executive Branch - is hugely important to whether the bill turns out to do good, bad, or somewhere inbetween. Let's be real about how much power one Senator out of 100 actually has. And on how many bills he/she votes on during a year. John Broughton 03:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

You can add information about IMBRA to the article, but you have to comply with WP:NPOV. What you added was completely biased, unsourced, and inflammatory. All of which are against wikipedia guidelines. --Bobblehead 03:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposed update discussion

Here's what Michaellovesnyc is proposing to insert:

Cantwell sponsored a bill that officially declared that American men are abusers Bill Declares American Men Abusers. The bill was in response to three murders of mail order brides in the past 20 years in contrast to about 1500 murders a year of spouses in general in the United States Homicide trends in the U.S. and an estimated 14,000 murders of wives a year in Russia 14,000 Russian Wives in Russia Killed Eacxh Year. Two lawsuits have been filed and a temporary restraining order has been granted European Connections vs. Gonzales. In violation of the restraining order, USCIS has implemented the new requirements and Cantwell's law has successfully blocked 10,000 couples from getting married Marriages Put on Hold Because of Cantwell Bill. Cantwell responded by blaming the immigration service for the problem caused by her bill. "Security and safety should be their top consideration but their long visa process delays are putting a lot of people's lives on hold," Cantwell said in a statement Homeland Security paperwork glitch delays thousands of weddings.

So, start editting, discussing against insertion, etc. --Bobblehead 15:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's start with the first sentence. Does the bill actually declare American men to be abusers? Can someone point to text in the bill itself to support that accusation? Otherwise, it's POV. -- Sholom 15:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm having issues reconciling most of the sentences. First off, while the bill was initially sponsored by Cantwell, it is no longer her bill as it was amended and altered by her fellow Congressmen and in the end was approved by Congress making it "Congress's bill". The second sentence does not appear to be germaine to the issue at hand as the bill is not attempting to deal with spousal abuse in the US or Russia. The third sentence seems to be a statement of fact. The fourth sentence is sourced by an article that makes no mention of the paperwork glitch being in violation of a restraining order. The fifth sentence appears to be a statement of fact, but seems unfairly critical of Cantwell as the sources provided are blaming Homeland Security, not the bill, for the problem. The bill initiated the required changes, but Homeland Security fubar'd the required changes and is responsible for the hold up... --Bobblehead 15:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

More research. For starters I found:

• Joe Biden was the sponsor, there were 58 co-sponsors (Cantwell among them) in the Senate, and it passed unanimously [1]. So why is this being blamed on Cantwell?
• It passed the House 415-4. [2]. So why is this being blamed on Cantwell?
• the domain of imbra.org, which is the source of some of the above, and rants against Cantwell, is owned by "michaellovesnyc@aol.com"
• the web site has ads on it from a group called "International Love Affair", which specializes in mail order brides

-- Sholom 18:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

A minor clarification. Joe Biden is the sponsor for S. 1197: Violence Against Women Act of 2005. Cantwell was the sponsor for International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005. IMBRA was rolled into VAWA. That happens a lot with bills on the Senate floor. As an example, check out the Senate Immigration Reform Bill it has a large number of acts rolled into it. However, doesn't change the fact that the Act was approved by the Senate unanimously. --Bobblehead 20:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

All in all, I see no reason to include Michaellovesnyc's updates. The Act does not declare all American males as abusers. The closest it gets is "Of abusive United States citizen or legal resident spouses," which clearly defines the impacted citizens/legal residents to those that are abusive and does not indicate the gender of those citizens aside from an earlier finding that a majority of those that use mail-order services are male. However the inference that the bill declares all American males abusive fails the logic test. The second sentence is original research and is not germaine to the topic at hand. The rest deals with the lawsuit brought against the act, but considering the contention of the lawsuit is that the case is a violation of 1st (Freedom of Speech, etc) and 5th amendment (double jeopardy) rights and not libel, I'm not sure how that supports the previously made claims.. Basically, the act is only controversial to a very small minority (which do not need to be included according to NPOV:undue weight guidelines) and aside from Cantwell sponsoring the Act and the lawsuit, it's not exactly noteworthy. --Bobblehead 20:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 03:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc And where do you get that its an "very small minority" ?

I didn't write the "declaration that men are abusers" it was written by a feminist writer and I provided the link to that.

Cantwell herself bragged about her sponsoship of the bill (up until 10,000 people's marriages were destoyed, but oh well; too bad for them); Check out Gary Bala's Blog and you will see a picture of her smiling as that idiot (I voted for him twice and now even I admit the man is a moron)Bush signs the bill.

As far as the vote, It passed by a voice vote with no debate as a reenactment of VAWA a few days before Christmas; no one even knew it was in there, and Bush signed it because, as is universally accepted, he is an idiot. The IMB's were never even given an opportunity to discuss it and none of them were not even aware of it until a month later !!! So don't go thinking this thing was supported by Congress. Cantwell shoved this thing down the throats of innocent people and disgusied it as part of VAWA; its funny now she has her backers pretending she had nothing to do with it ! At least her opponent has 10,000 more backers !

"Democrat in Name Only"

68.74.8.121 has repeatedly altered the introductory paragraph of the article to describe Cantwell as a DINO. I feel that this statement is a clear violation of WP:NPOV, and would like to request the comments of others on the issue.

I quite agree, and have reverted it myself. Personally, I'm not too happy with her recent vote, but that doesn't translate into a slander label being applied in her article. Now if she begins to be referred to this way by the media, mention of this would deserve notice. Right now, it's just one person's opinion, and has no place here. Ocicat 00:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted the user's comments as POV a few times, but as NPOV problems are not vandalism, I'm already broken WP:3RR in doing so, and in any case an edit war isn't going to solve anything. Brendan 23:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the debate on if she is or is not a DINO is a valid discussion but I think it should be in the US senate section. --8bitJake 00:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

So, your current edit says "Critics of her Senate voting record have accused her of being a Democrat In Name Only." Outside of Wikipedia, exactly which critics are these? This falls (I think) under NPOV and/or Original Research. Ocicat 00:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

by "Critics of her Senate voting record" I mean progressive members of the Washington State Democratic Party and the Democratic netroots that has been following the filibuster. --8bitJake 00:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Then which member of that group called her a "DINO"? I know the're unhappy, but that alone does not justify the term. Mentioning that the vote caused conflict with members of her party would be fine and true. Ocicat 02:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I reverted several highly POV or all-caps versions of the claim because it doesn't belong in the introduction. The current version and placement (under U.S. Senator) seems much more appropriate, although it could use a better source and more clearly identify the problem votes. --Ajdz 02:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

She's not DINO

I think she's not DINO, because:

• She's 100% pro choice
• She voted YES on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes
• She's opposes the death penalty
• She's rated 0% by the Christian Coalition: an anti-family voting record
• She's opposes absolute right to gun ownership
• She voted NO on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act
• She voted NO on confirming Samuel Alito as Supreme Court Justice and NO on confirming John Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, two Bush nominnes
• She's opposes privatizing Social Security

She's one of the more liberal senators. I like her ;)

Hey unsigned comment. When she voted with the Republicans to end the filibuster of Alito she helped end Choice in America. --8bitJake 15:45, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

And don't forget that she voted for partial birth abortion and against making it a crime to injure a fetus; she is a Democratic Poster Child; what more do you want her to do? Blow up an infant ward? Michaellovesnyc 03:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

PACs

Please clarify the PAC pledge and current fundraising. The source which is used to say that Cantwell is not accepting PAC money says PACs have reported giving her $34,925 for 2005-2006. That certainly doesn't look like nothing and the source itself is ambiguous. --Ajdz 05:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Happy to clarify. I think a careful reading of the source itself actually does explain it, but here is the deal. The Center For Responsive Politics (CRP/Opensecrets.org) has put up this note to explain FEC (Federal Election Commission) reports for Cantwell and the other dozen or so members who don't take PAC money. The reason why has two important parts: 1)in theory PAC contributions are reported by both the PAC donating it AND by the candidate/campaign receiving it. Most of what is being listed under the notice on their page has been reported by the PACs, but not by the campaign. What often happens is that the campaign refuses the money, refunds it, returns the check (or some combo of the above), so they never deposit or accept the money. However, shoddy bookeeping on the PAC side of things means they never report "getting it back" or it being refused. Thus it "shows up" even though if you look at Maria Cantwell's FEC report (or some of the other folks who refuse PAC money) they don't take it and never reported getting it/depositing it/or they refunded it.

2) another FEC oddity is that you report different kinds of contributions (individuals, bank intererst, etc...) on different lines of the report (sort of like your tax return. One of these lines includes ALL other committees, including both PACs and other things. So some of what is in that listing on the web is from Maria's Senate colleagues campaign committees (i.e. John Kerry for Senate, Barak Obama for Senate (for example, not sure if those particualr examples apply), which aren't PACs at all (if Barak or Kerry's PAC had contributed (so called leadership PACs) that would be something else). But the FEC lumps it all together so when you have an automated database, it looks similar. Thats why Opensecrets adds that note. So everything that is there is either 1) something reported by the PAC that the Cantwell folks didn't accept and wasn't yet properly reported as refunded by the PAC or 2) from other Senate campaigns, which aren't PACs at all.

Hope that (overly technical) explanation is useful. I know the GOP likes to attack her on this, but its not factually true at all. --08:04, February 14, 2006 207.172.82.83

Washington United States Senate election, 2006

Advance notice: I plan to move a lot of the material on the 2006 election to the separate article on that race; the link to that separate article makes it easy to find such information. John Broughton 19:10, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Chadlupkes 20:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm done. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. John Broughton 16:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions/Requests

Does anyone know what religion she is? Just curious. Thanks!

RfC on Michaellovesnyc

I notice User:Michaellovesnyc has been trying to insert his point of view into the Maria Cantwell article. We've been trying to negotiate with him about Mail-order bride for months now. Some of the editors there have begun preparing a request for comment about his behaviour that will be submitted soon. The draft is here. Please feel free to edit it - add diffs that show disputed edits on this article and your attempts to negotiate with him. --Grace 22:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Phrasing problem

I think its problematic to begin assertions with phrases such as "Cantwell did support the view of many left-wing groups when..." (this in reference to her oppostion to the Roberts nomination) unless one can establish a causal link to the referenced group/position/event. That is, was Cantwell's vote the result of an effort to support/appease "left wing groups"? If so, document this. Otherwise we end up with an implication of causality when coincidence would be just as logical an inference. It's a common rhetorical device--"Bush echoes the actions of many neo-Nazis in eating breakfast cereal"--but hardly illustrative or fair. Is anyone else finding this more and more common in pages relating to active politicians (particularly those with a race this fall, 2006)? --Patchyreynolds 15:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)