Questions for Congressman John Doolittle

Tuesday Sept 12 updates:

1. Still no answers to these questions. I know I have to hire a lobbyist to get federal funding, but do I have to hire one just to get my questions answered?

I can't afford the 60k/year that Sierra College was (is?) paying to retain Pete Evich's lubricating-the-flow-of-federal-funds services, but then I don't need a $200,000 earmark either; how much does it cost for just a few true-false question answers?

2. Elsewhere, there've been Disclosures (to the extent that the anonymous can disclose) from the proprietors of the Dump Doolittle weblog

Friday Sept 15 updates:
1. Still no answers from Doolittle's offices.
2. See the blog setup disclosure below, with Oct 31 update.


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The post:

Sent (again) today [Sept 8] to Chris Parilo, Congressman Doolittle's field rep. I've edited slightly and added links.

In case my email to you from last week got lost in the shuffle, here are the questions again. And if there's someone else that I should be directing them to, please let me know and I'll do so.

Over the last month or so I've tried

• calling Congressman Doolittle's branch and D.C. offices
  
• using his web "contact" form
  
• faxing the questions to his spokeswoman.
  

These approaches have not worked.

Questions:

1. For the Earmarks joint project by The Examiner, TownHall.com, the Sunlight Foundation and others:
   Which of the earmarks in the upcoming Labor HHS Bill were sponsored by Mr. Doolittle?
   
   
   
2. For a local project to survey and report Nevada County public servants' position on global warming -
   (I've also asked the other candidates these questions)
   
   
   
   1. Has he seen the film An Inconvenient Truth?
      
      
   2. Did he see the Discovery Channel 2-hour Tom Brokaw special on global warming, that aired in July, or the ABC documentary that showed more recently?
      
      
   3. Does he believe that
      1) a scientific consensus exists that global warming is occurrring and is mostly human-caused?
      2) it is a major and urgent problem that we need to address?
      
   
   
   
   
3. Regarding federal funding for embryonic stem cell research (I'm pretty sure he's opposed to it), would he take the "stem cell" pledge, as put forth by Jon Alter July 28 in Newsweek:
   
   
   "Because of my strong opposition to embryonic-stem-cell research, I hereby pledge that should I, at any point in the future, develop diabetes, cancer, spinal-cord injuries or Parkinson's, among other diseases, I will refuse any and all treatments derived from such research, at home or abroad, even if it costs me my life."
   
   
   (I'm not sure if it's reasonable to expect someone to take this pledge, but would still like to know)
   
   I've sent email asking his opponents' positions on this issue, and if they're opposed, I'll also ask them if they'll take the pledge.
   
   
   
4. A belated question for the Talking Points Memo "Shay's handful" project (e.g. here ) -
   In Fall 2004, how did Congressman Doolittle vote (in the voice-vote in the GOP caucus meeting) on the DeLay rule (where the House Republican Conference's voted to change a rule requiring members in leadership positions to step down if indicted by state grand juries)?
   

Update, 30 min after posting this - Doolittle's field rep. (Chris P.) says he has the questions but it might take [more] time to put together responses.

Monday update - I've replied by email asking this:

How long does Congressman Doolittle's staff consider to be a reasonable period of time, between receiving questions like these from a constituent and answering them?

(I ask for two reasons - first, I'm not clear on how long I should expect to wait to get answers in this particular instance, and second, it would be a useful metric for comparison between the Congressman and the other candidates for his position.)

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Disclosure (added Fri Sept 15, updated Oct 31): I have set up a blog (as yet unused) for the group Republicans For Brown (and would be happy to do likewise for a Democrats for Doolittle group, if they existed and asked (and lo, they do exist - but it seems that the group's two members - Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner and Placer County Supervisor Bill Santucci - both have unlisted phone numbers, so I'll wait to hear from them...) - details/reasons in comments here and here.
Some past* "election blog setup help" offers to candidates in local races (regardless of political orientation) are recounted here and here.