Gentlemen, go to the back of the class, says the Sargent Shriver National Center for Poverty Law.
Rep. Doug Lamborn, recently retired Rep. Tom Tancredo and Sen. Wayne Allard all earned failing grades on the center’s new poverty scorecard. The Republican trio ranked dead last in the 110th Congress for their votes on bills legislating fair pay, housing, college financial aid, unemployment and other measures designed to lift working class folk out of poverty.
Tancredo, in fact, bought an abysmal F-minus rate for voting against every bill in the survey despite Colorado’s 12 percent poverty and creeping unemployment rate.
Lamborn narrowly missed the minus designation by voting for a bill to prevent homelessness among veterans and to expand protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Allard voted for a single measure that increases financial-aid programs and funding to post-secondary schools that historically serve minority students.
Former Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, who once recounted her impoverished childhood living in a “Mexican shack” because her alcoholic father drank the family’s income away, squeaked by with a “D” grade.
Lamborn, Tancredo and Allard join a rogues’ gallery of fellow flunk-outs comprised of some of the most conservative members of Congress: Sens. Tom Coburn, R-OK, Jim Inhofe, R-OK, Jim DeMint, R-SC, Bob Corker, R-TN and Reps. Kenny Marchant, Ron Paul and Jeb Hensarling — all members of the Texas delegation.
The rest of the Colorado delegation fares much better:
