Meet the House Democrats behind the extreme anti-abortion legislation

We’re hearing a lot about the GOP’s anti-abortion legislation these days. But among the 170+ Republican co-sponsors of HR3 in the House, there are also ten Democrats.

An excerpt from Sarah’s profile:

Heath Shuler gets my especial ire because he challenged Nancy Pelosi for Minority Leader status in the new Congress. Though she easily won, the fact that an antichoice Blue Dog got 43 votes to lead the ostensible Democratic caucus is telling. 24 of the 58 Blue Dogs were defeated in this round of elections, which should’ve taught them the lesson that some of us have been screaming for years—in a choice between Republican-lite and Republican, voters usually go with the real Republican. We can apparently blame Bill Clinton and Rahm Emanuel for Shuler’s running for office in the first place, and Clinton continued to campaign for him even after he voted against two of his party’s major priorities.

In a week when we’ve been talking a lot about rape and NFL quarterbacks, I think we should note that Shuler is also a former NFL quarterback. Take that how you will. He’s also a member of the Family, the secretive religious group described so well by Jeff Sharlet, and called by the New Yorker a “Frat House for Jesus”. You know, along with such pro-woman great dudes as Jim DeMint.

The DCCC spent $231,112.63 on Shuler’s reelection this year in North Carolina’s 11th district. The Blue Dog PAC also kicked in $30,000, and Shuler’s largest individual donor was a company called Phillips & Jordan, to the tune of $56,150. (They contribute mostly to Republicans, but Shuler was by far the biggest recipient of their largesse—hmmm. They appear to get quite a few federal contracts, mostly for demolishing things in New Orleans post-Katrina. I’m not even going to get STARTED on that.)

Read the rest here.