As the signators of this letter, we submit it with some measure of trepidation. How can we express our dismay and contempt for your recent votes concerning S.1805, when we all know that you are still grieving over the loss of your son Garrett? Believe us when we say that we wish that your recent actions on our issue would have given us no cause to contact you like this.
Not one of us who has them can imagine outliving one of our children. The depth of your pain must be unfathomable. You have our deepest condolences for your loss. Nevertheless, we still write to criticize your votes on S. 1805.
This letter is our duty. We owe it to ourselves to speak out concerning this matter. We owe it to each other. Most importantly, we owe it to our children as a lesson to them about the assumption of a duty one does not particularly relish.
Enclosed please find some white feathers. If you are uncertain as to the symbolic nature of them, suffice it to say that these are tokens of our contempt for your apparent lack of political courage regarding your votes on S. 1805 recently. Feathers similar to these were used to prod men of fighting age into joining the Royal Army during World War I by calling into question the manhood of the recipient. The feathers did not signify cowardice per se, because the recipient could still show his mettle by doing his duty, and most did, but some did not and certainly earned the scorn of their countrymen. Through the prodding of these feathers, it is our sincere hope that you find within yourself the meaning of what it is to be a loyal Republican on a core Republican issue should the chance one day come for you to redeem yourself in our eyes.
You may not fully appreciate it, but when you decided to become a Republican in a federal office, you picked a side, one that has core constituencies and core issues in nothing less than a war over the culture of these United States. That is not to say that there must be a surrendering of one’s will to become a Republican in the United States Senate, as on many questions of conscience, there can be no such thing as party discipline. However, policy stances held in opposition to the values held by the majority of your Party and the vast majority of those who make up the base vote of your party are only to be respected when those stances are held in good faith and can be logically explained. It is in the last that we find your recent actions sorely wanting.
Perhaps your feathers are well earned. A clear and non-canned explanation of the following would go a long way in helping us determine whether our feathers have been misdirected. As of this writing we certainly fail to understand the “bipartisan courage†you have exhibited on the issue of gun control. To wit:
• Please explain why you decided to become a co-sponsor of what became known as S.1805.
• Please explain whether you heard President Bush’s call for a clean bill to be passed.
• If you heard the call for a clean bill, please explain your vote for the Boxer/Kohl amendment requiring trigger locks.
• Since there was an appreciable danger of an extension of the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban†performing, as it did, as a poison pill to the entire bill, please explain why, as a co-sponsor, you ran the risk of ultimately killing the bill, (as it was), by voting for this provision that is so hated by your core constituencies as a Republican.
• In light of your vote for the AWB, which has no policy equivalent in Oregon, why then did you vote against the so-called “Gun Show Loophole†amendment, which in fact does have an equivalent here, passed by initiative in 2000?
• Finally, please explain why, since you had achieved the acceptance of the trigger lock amendment, the assault weapons ban, and the rejection of the gun show amendment, in short, everything you apparently wanted in the bill, you voted against its final passage.
You should excuse us for thinking that there is no method to your madness concerning your S. 1805 votes. You might even excuse us for thinking that your votes were a cynical exercise in doing nothing by appearing to do something.
Rest assured that we are not fooled by your Chief of Staff’s spinning of your votes as “courageous†in such conservative venues as Oregon Public Radio. There is little one could call courage concerning that series of votes or in the presentation of the only apparent explanation of the votes being given by a staffer to the state’s leading left-wing radio station.
We, the undersigned, therefore humbly request the following:
• That you bone up on your reading of the Constitution you swore to uphold. When you get to the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, please linger at the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed until you understand it.
• That if you are going to pander to the mushy-headed middle with our issue, that you at least do so honestly, and not through an intellectual and morally dishonest series of votes like the one you just recorded. If you think we were fooled into thinking you are our friend on this issue because you voted against some of the more foolish amendments to S. 1805, you are wrong, because you recorded a vote for the most foolish one of them all, the one that your base voters having been laboring for a decade to rid themselves of.
• That if you cannot bring yourself to vote as a Republican would on one of the core issues that the supporters of your party demand fidelity on, that you consider ending the suspense and just come out as a Democrat. We note your penchant for working with Senator Ron Wyden on many issues. However, on his Senate website, where he has published a checklist of goals he hoped to work with you on this session, backstabbing your own party and constituents on gun rights wasn’t on that agenda. If it was, he certainly showed us no bipartisanship in return, voting lockstep with the wishes of his party the entire debate.
Once again, it is with deep sorrow that we have to write you on this topic at all. It is our sincere hope that our feathers will prompt you to actually join the fight on this issue in a manner befitting a Republican senator from a state wherein ALL firearms are appreciated. If Senator Wyden wants to represent the anti-constitutional view on this issue as if he were still representing Portland, as he did in the House–let him. You purport to represent the entire state. Hopefully, you haven’t forgotten our utter disappointment in terms of your performance on our issue before your next election, should you run at all. No Republican can win in this state with a disaffected base, and as of the first week of March, 2004, you are giving us no particular reason to vote for you again, seeing how you provide precious little in way of distinction between yourself and a pro-gun control Democrat.
Respectfully,
