The HR3 Ten: Meet Dan Boren (One Creepy Dude)

Dan Boren not only voted to strip you of your reproductive rights, he also voted AGAINST the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. That's right, ladies, he wants to tell you what you can do with your bodies and how much your work is worth.

Ten Democrats cosponsored H.R.3, even with language redefining rape; four of those ten also apparently don’t care if pregnant women die. Sarah Jaffe takes a closer look at all ten, find all posted to date here.


Meet Dan Boren, Democrat from Oklahoma. 

Dan Boren is such a good Democrat that he is on record hoping for Democrats to lose seats in 2010. He told the Tulsa World that Democratic losses would be a: 

“good thing for Oklahoma and for me.” 

“If we have a tight majority one way or another, that puts me in the driver’s seat,” the three-term lawmaker said. 

“In the 112th (Congress), I probably will have the most influence I have ever had, no matter who has the majority.” 

Because we all know that what happens to the country does not matter! It’s all about DAN BOREN!  

And that includes what goes on inside your bodies. He of course voted to defund Planned Parenthood, and co-sponsors H.R. 3.

But ladies! He’s a cosponsor of the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act of 2011! He does not want to discriminate against your abortions! 

Oh wait. Priests for Life (No snarking) says:

“The legislation protects health care entities, both individuals and institutions, from discrimination by any recipient of federal financial assistance for refusing to perform, pay for, or refer for abortion. It also bars any entity that receives federal funding from forcing a person or institution to undergo or provide training in abortion procedures.” 

This video explains more. Language NSFW. 

Sarah Morice Brubaker, who wrote about Lila Rose’s quest to defund Planned Parenthood for Religion Dispatches and lives and teaches in Tulsa, Oklahoma, told me that there are plenty of pockets of progressives in and around Tulsa, but outside of that it’s a pretty conservative state with a thick Tea Party presence. 

Boren is also a cosponsor of the most misleadingly-named legislation in Congress that doesn’t involve uteruses or fetuses, the Fair Tax Act. The “Fair Tax” would get rid of all income taxes and instead tax “consumption.” It would take a while to explain all the ways in which this is a bad plan, so you may have to trust me on it: sales taxes are regressive, and even with a “prebate” giving people money back to cover purchases up to a certain level, this is a plan to lower taxes on the rich and hike them on everyone else. 

Sort of like cutting funding for Planned Parenthood, or driving abortion services out of private health insurance. 

He is ALSO a cosponsor of the “Free Industry Act” which would amend the Clean Air act “to provide that greenhouse gases are not subject to the Act, and for other purposes.” Cause climate change is for suckers. 

And like all the rest of the HR3 Ten thus far, Boren is no fan of immigrants. He’s a cosponsor of the “No Social Security for Illegal Immigrants” act, which at least has the benefit of not having an Orwellian name. Except that whole calling-human-beings-illegal thing. 

Just to make things fun, Dan Boren also doesn’t like Net Neutrality–he cosponsored a resolution “Disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to regulating the Internet and broadband industry practices.” So he wants to let corporations regulate your internet access, too. Freedom!

He votes with his party a whopping 46% of the time. Really. Less than half of the time. He voted to repeal health care reform, voted AGAINST the Food Safety and Modernization Act, voted against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal. 

He voted AGAINST the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. That’s right, ladies, he thinks that he should get to tell you what to do with your bodies and ALSO that you don’t deserve to be paid the same as men. 

He voted against SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Because he’s pro-life. Seriously, can we never apply the pro-life label to people who vote against health care for children? They’re pro-forced birth and that’s it. 

Dan Boren does love guns, and guns love him: the NRA spent $8,175 on his campaign. 

Dan Boren has a cameo in Josh Fox’s Oscar-nominated film, Gasland. Howie Klein notes: 

Since 1990, Big Oil has invested around $144 million in the careers of congressmen, almost all conservatives. Almost 70% of the payoff have gone to Republicans. And among current members of the House there’s only one Democrat in Big Oil’s Top 10: Dan Boren ($565,460). As you can see, Big Oil is, by far, the biggest source of cash for his political endeavors. What you haven’t been able to see, until Fox caught it on tape, is that Boren, who bragged about not voting for Obama and who has voted against virtually every piece of Democratic legislation since Obama has become president, has never found anything in the oil industry’s agenda that he didn’t get behind. And, as a member of the Committee on Natural Resources — and on the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources — that support has been worth a lot more to Big Oil than the $565,460 they’ve given Boren for his campaigns.

Boren’s top individual donor is a law firm called Nix, Patterson & Roach, whose claim to fame is prosecuting the tobacco industry. 

On the fiscal responsibility front (he is a Blue Dog, after all), Boren’s had $59,712,500 in earmarks, mostly military and in-district stuff. 

So to recap: Oil is cool. “Fair” Taxes are cool. Greenhouse gases are totally cool. Immigrants are not. Abortion is obviously not. Health care is not. A Democratic House and a Democratic President are not. 

You can ask Dan Boren how he can look himself in the mirror every day and claim to be “pro-life” here at his website or contact him at his office:

2447 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-2701
(202) 225-3038 fax

And as usual, you can ask the DCCC why it likes antichoice Dems like Mike Ross better than it likes women.

430 S. Capitol St. SE
Washington, DC 20003
Main Phone Number: (202) 863-1500

While you’re at it, you can ask them why they’re only asking for $100,000 for “the DCCC’s Women’s Health Rapid Response Fund.”  Antichoice Dems are worth $3.4 million and women’s health is worth $100,000?

Meet the rest of the HR3 Ten here. Meet Collin Peterson next!