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Lynne Kirby: No representation

Excuse me, Mr. Salazar, but weren’t you elected as the U.S. Congressional representative for Colorado’s 3rd Congres­sional District? Key word: representative.

If you answer in the affirmative, I have just one question for you: Who in Colorado were you representing with your recent vote to pass HR 3590?

This monstrous health care bill would never have gotten the needed votes from the House without the reconciliation package. Your party justified the use of the reconciliation process in the Senate to pass the package by touting that a simple majority — 51 votes (just 51 percent) was sufficient to pass the biggest piece of legislation since the Social Security Act. How then do you justify not listening to the overwhelming majority — at times close to 60 percent — of the citizens in the U.S. who wanted you to vote no? Why didn’t that majority have a voice? Were the percentages in your district atypical of the rest of the nation, and of the rest of Colorado?



When elected officials don’t cast their votes based on the wishes of their constituents, they say it’s because they “voted their conscience.” I submit that in this case you voted not your conscience, but rather your arrogance. You simply thought you knew better than the rest of us, that you’re smarter, more in tune, more acutely aware of the facts. It’s a disease that seems to have hit particularly hard in Washington, D.C., of late.

Be warned, however, that we the voters also have egos and many of ours were bruised when you kicked us and our opinions aside. But our turn to vote is coming in November. In the interim, I promise to ignore your vision for the future of our nation, just as you ignored mine. I also will ignore all your e-mails, telephone calls and letters, just as you did mine. And I’m certain my vote won’t be representative of your needs, just as your vote did not represent mine.



Lynne Kirby

Steamboat Springs


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