Jean Schmidt signs "No Pork Pledge"

An update to 'Congressman John Boehner supports "Hurricane No Pork Pledge". Will Jean Schmidt take the pledge?' : Congresswoman Jean Schmidt has signed the pledge.

Along with this update, Eric from Project Logic also reports:

In other news, she also sided with a group of 76 Republicans and a handful of conservative Democrats in voting against HR 3895.The bill, known as the Rural Housing Hurricane Relief Act of 2005, ammends the 1949 Housing Act. Schmidt chose to oppose it because she failed to receive any real answers concerning it's oversight on spending. While the measure still passed, Ohio's 2nd District should be grateful that it has a representative unafraid to buck the trends in order to keep waste and abuse in check.

Tom Blumer of BizzyBlog adds in the above post's comments:

This is gratifying. She said she had done this at the Saturday Town Hall in Montgomery, but I didn't post on that meeting because her name wasn't on the CAGW list on Saturday afternoon.Good job catching it and noting it.I hope she stays on the no-pork diet.

She also made the point on Saturday about lack of oversight in the Katrina housing bill being why she went against. Agree; good move.

Porkopolis agrees that these are fiscally conservative moves on our representative's part and as Tom notes, "hope she stays on the no-pork diet".

As to the 'gratefulness' Tom and Eric express for her actions: It's generally a good approach to laud the behavior you want to see more of; but Porkopolis reserves praise until a consistent track record has been established.

We're in our collective fiscal mess because of a lack of follow through from the party of 'fiscal conservatism'. These two decisions were by no means tough decisions; they were par for the course.

Reworking the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, reforming Social Security, voting against thousands of earmarks in appropriations bills...those are 'tough' votes with long term, trillion dollar bottom-line implications; the types of votes you consistently see someone like Congressman Jeff Flake make. [Update: Even Flake has the occasional screw-up as noted in the update to this post.]

In light of the cluelessness some Washington Republicans display (see: Tom DeLay's words ring hollow), prematurely doling out 'kudos' may have the effect of lowering expectations.