Known by the company they keep (Part IV): David Vitter

David Vitter, the junior Senator from Louisiana, is running for his second term with Tea Party backing.  Vitter proposed Senate Resolution 98, which would have designated April 15, 2009 and 2010 as “National Tea Party Day.”  His campaign website encourages supporters to sign his online petition to make every April 15 National Tea Party Day “to recognize the efforts of these citizens and to support their fight against the federal government’s wasteful spending and bailout policies.”

Vitter is a notably intelligent and well-educated Tea Party Candidate.  He holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a law degree from Tulane, and he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.  He has practiced law and was an adjunct professor at Tulane and Loyola law schools.   However, he has been a politician for most of his adult life: he served in the Louisiana state legislature from 1992-1999, in the US House of Representatives from 1999-2005, and in the US Senate since 2005.

A self proclaimed fiscal conservative, Vitter favors a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and the abolition of state and Federal estate taxes.  He voted against Bush’s Wall Street bailout and Obama’s bailout of the Big 3 US auto makers.  Vitter has consistently opposed any kind of public funding for health care, including the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.  However, in 2007, he did earmark $100,000 in Federal monies for a tax-exempt Christian organization, the Louisiana Family Forum, which promotes teaching “intelligent design” as opposed to evolution.  Vitter claimed that the earmark was “to develop a plan to promote better science education,” but ultimately withdrew the earmark.

Vitter is a Roman Catholic and social conservative who opposes gambling, sex education (“just say no”), the “morning after pill,” and abortion.  As Senator, he has introduced legislative amendments to prohibit health care providers and organizations that provide abortion services from receiving any federal funding whatsoever, and to prohibit the use of Indian Health Service funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is at risk.  Both of these efforts failed.

Vitter has consistently supported a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.   He has publicly proclaimed his commitment to protecting traditional marriage as “the most important social institution in human history.”  Meanwhile, Vitter admitted that he was a customer of the notorious “DC Madam” from October 1999 until February 2001, while he was a married US Congressman.  He was also identified as a customer of New Orleans’ “Canal Street Madam” during the 1990’s, while he was a married Lousiana state legislator.  Vitter apologized for his past “sins,” and apparently he has been forgiven by his wife and his constituents.  He saw no need to consider resigning his Senate seat, despite his publicly stated opinion that Bill Clinton should resign in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. 

The immensity of Vitter’s hypocrisy is simply stunning.  But he won’t raise your taxes.