With the U.S. House of Representatives starting off a new session today and Senators coming back to work next week, both parties will be eager to make headway on their respective legislative agendas.
For congressional leaders, part of this means making sure their party members fall in line when it's time to vote and don't stray across the aisle.
Political news site The Hill recently put together a list of 12 Republican House representatives who are proving to be particularly irksome for GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner, and among those breaking rank and causing headaches for the Speaker is Michigan Rep. Justin Amash (R-Grand Rapids).
The Hill writes of Rep. Amash:
The freshman from Michigan, who is a big fan of Paul, routinely votes against leadership. Amash is a vocal critic of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On the eve of a tense House vote on Boehner’s debt bill, Amash told his followers, “I cannot support an increase in the debt limit without the passage of a major structural reform to government, such as a well-structured balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.”
Last April, the New York Times profiled Rep. Amash who, despite his emphasis on returning to constitutional basics, is the youngest member of the House's freshman class and regularly explains his votes on his Facebook page.
Below is a clip from CBS News demonstrating Amash's tech savvy.
http://youtu.be/TRJMbWlml1A
-John Klein Wilson, Michigan Radio Newsroom
