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  • simple1
    06-05 01:00 PM
    The arguments like the following works for gc/usc only, who can stay put even after loosing job. The H1b has to leave the country.
    - best time to buy
    - inflation level of the real high prices
    - lock low interest rates now.
    - clean/strong foreclosure houses available now.
    - federal incentive to buy house.
    - downpayment assistance.
    - etc.





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  • dixie
    08-13 01:17 AM
    He said that average productivity of an american is greater than the productivity of 3-4 Asians and then went on to ask, why is then corporate american sending jobs outside of united states?.


    How the hell did he arrive at that figure ? the whole trouble with lou is he fabricates "research" such as the above statement with absolutely nothing to back it up. So much for the Harvard educated economist in him.





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  • bkarnik
    08-05 05:26 PM
    A lady tells her husband to go to the store to buy some cigarettes.He walks down to the store only to find it closed. So he goes into a nearby bar to use the vending machine.

    At the bar he sees a beautiful woman and starts talking to her.They have a couple of beers and one thing leads to another and they end up in her apartment. After they've had their fun, he realizes its 3AM and says, "Oh no, its so late, my wife's going to kill me. Have you got any talcum powder?" She gives him some talcum powder, which he proceeds to rub on his hands and then he goes home.

    His wife is waiting for him in the doorway and she is pretty angry.Where the hell have you been?". Well, honey, it's like this. I went to the store like you asked, but they were closed. So I Went to the bar to use the vending machine. I saw this great looking girl there and we had a few drinks and one thing led to another and I ended up in Bed with her.

    "Oh yeah? Let me see your hands!"

    She sees his hands are Covered with powder and says...
    "You God damn liar!!! You were playing pool again!!!"

    Moral of the story:

    Always tell your wife the truth. She won't believe you anyway. At least your conscience is clear





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  • sledge_hammer
    03-23 01:24 PM
    I'm not sure if its just me being a conspiracy theorist for a change, but I see that these types of phone calls and RFEs, etc are coming only to people that DON'T have a lawyer. Anyone else feels the same?



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  • unseenguy
    06-07 09:47 PM
    For me its a very simple thing, print that damn thing of plastic and I will buy. I have kept my down payment safe aside in CDs. If not, I am sending some chunk of yearly saving back to India, making it harder for me to live and settle here. :) No plastic, no investment.





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  • NKR
    08-05 04:34 PM
    Instead of getting emotional if we look at the point Rolling_Flood is trying to make, it makes perfect sense.

    I don't see why there are so many angered arguments...

    1. EB2/EB3 is decided by Job Profile - correct. Its always option to say NO if your employer is filing it in EB3. My previous company wanted to file my labor in EB3, I said NO and left them. Filed in EB2 with new employer.

    Its easy to be sympathetic with people whose employer filed them in EB3, but remember they always had option to say NO.

    2. If someone have EB3 priority date before other guy who filed EB2 from beginning, the porting EB3 to EB2 and getting ahead of EB2 guy is grossly incorrect. I can't believe USCIS lets this happen.

    If someones job profile was eligible for EB3 only when they filed and now fits in EB2, they should file fresh application based on EB2 job profile.


    Looking at previous trashing of thread opener, I am expecting lots of reds - so go ahead but that not going to change the truth.


    No, I will not waste time on giving you a red, looks like you are someone who wants to stoke more fire. Your new PD with only this post shows your true colors (red or green or whatever you call it)



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  • willwin
    07-14 08:09 AM
    willwin - What we are essentially saying is to artificially retrogress EB2 than it otherwise would have so that an EB3 who is waiting for 7 years gets his GC first - thats really what the spillover break up will do. Similarly an argument can be made to artificially retrogress EB1 so that an EB2 who is waiting for 4 years gets his GC first.
    Whether EB1 is presently retrogressed or not doesn't matter.
    Let's think about this for a moment. We are trying to completely negate the category preference established by law and asking them to grant GC's based solely on PD regardless of category.
    Ain't gonna happen - dont want to be a pessimist but at some point we have to call it as we see it.

    fine, then why are we working so hard to remove the per country limit? That was set by law too!!!

    We can't pick only those options that would favor us. Sometimes changes bring hard-luck.





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  • transpass
    03-26 07:30 PM
    I tried looking for the baltimore case but I don't have it on this computer. You might want to search for it on immigration.com.

    That case had a lot more things in it.

    1) person never worked at the location as specified by the greencard labor
    2) person acknowledged he wasn't going to work there upon greencard approval
    3) person was claiming ac21 within same employer for different location


    Administrative appeals office; concurred that ac21 wasn't specific to geographic location and didn't have to be done with another company; it could be done within same company.

    Then AAO went another way and picked on some other issues: Other issues they picked on was information on his g-325a and his work locations. They picked onthat he didn't have h-1b's approved for those particular locations or LCA's and he was out of status. he was good on the ac21 but was out of status prior to filing 485.

    But in the Baltimore case, AAO was questioning that the beneficiary never resided in the state his H1 was petitioned for...But I wonder, shouldn't that be allowed as long as the place of work remains the same...I mean, let's say, if I work work in NY and live in NY, then as per AAO, it's fine. What if I work in NY (same location) and live in NJ, then it's not ok as per AAO? What if I can commute even longer distances dailiy, like living in Philly and commuting to DC, etc.? May be that's the reason why AAO directed the local office to give the petitioner a chance to provide any such evidence?



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  • gcnotfiledyet
    03-24 03:53 PM
    Ofcourse I am unbias.

    I can't even begin to think how many people I know; cases I know from people who are from india.

    I'd say that it is less then 3% from people with other countries.

    As another poster rightly said that many of the issues happening is mainly to India because it takes so long to get the greencard and eventually everyone gets into these issues.

    Non indians don't face many issues because they get the greencard so fast; and hence they go through very little issues (generally). If other countires had to wait so long then everyone would also have similar types of issues.

    Since most of the forums are related to IT and Indians then if I ever broach on something a little negative or give different perspective then people look at my profile and see I was born in Pakistan and think there is some bias there.

    btw; I left when I was five years old and hardly knew any pakistanis/indians when I was growing up and for what it is worth my wife is Hindu.

    Your posts are arguably best on this forum. I have religiously read all your posts and will do in future. Your posts always make sense. I just wish we could get more insight and perspective from you. Great work. Keep them coming.

    What are your thoughts on h1bs/GC sponsored by universities. Do you forsee any problems with them? Also any insight on long time it takes for visa stamping?





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  • posmd
    07-08 07:32 PM
    I feel the same way Gondalguru. This is a globalised world or atleast so the US would like everyone else to believe. In that sense where you are should matter less than the contribution you are making, yet alas the immigration system is stuck in its 20th century President Kennedy era mindset of "reuniting families". I am not against that per se as it is a noble virtue, but when I see that to be in direct contravention of the aims and objectives of globalization which incidently the USA also champions so vehemently, I sense hypocrisy at worst or a conflict of policy at best.

    My parents immigrated to a country which is NOT retrogressed (ROW of which I hold a passport) when I was 3 yrs old.
    I was schooled and in every other way raised as such. Yet I was born in India................as you rightly point out by mere chance. Yet I am saddled with the consequence of waiting in line with every other applicant from India. If that were not funny enough, one of my close friends, his parents were in the USA in the 60s and left when his mother was 7-8 months pregnant with him, and he was born in India, now he has to go through the same line, he also holds a ROW passport. Should the majority of gestation count toward his citizenship?
    These are difficult questions and the current policy is ill geared to deal with them. Those that win from them laud them and those that get hurt curse them. It is what it is..........dysfunctional.
    It either is or it is not a globalised world, and the policy is or is not such. Unfortunately we are all caught in this indecisive mode that the US currently finds itself locked into, it is not just about us and our immigration situation, it is about a lot of other issues as well and the USA will spend the next 10-20 yrs figuring this out.



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  • NKR
    08-05 08:28 AM
    What i mean is: Porting should not be an option based on the LENGTH OF WAITING TIME in EB3 status. That is what it is most commonly used for, thus causing a serious disadvantage to EB2 filers (who did not port).

    "Employment Preference Categories" have very real legal groundings, and i intend to challenge the porting rule based on those facts.

    If someone is unsatisfied with their EB3 application, they are more than welcome to start a fresh EB2 or EB1 application process, rather than try the porting subterfuge.

    I hope i have made my point clear? Thanks.


    I am EB2 and I do not support this idea. Just imagine, someone could have applied in EB3 though he was qualified for EB2 because he was ill advised by his lawyers or employers. Why should he be punished TWICE for no fault of his?.





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  • gomirage
    06-07 03:05 PM
    That's true. We should not look at buying a house as a sound investment because it is really not. I bought a house for my own happiness and satisfaction of a living a nice life in my lifetime.

    What would I do with the tons of money invested somewhere else while I live in an apartment? Most probably, I would just spend it on vacation, travel the whole world, or probably lose some of the returns in buying a nice home at inflated price in the future.

    I completely agree with you. Just as s side note I am also planning on buying in a year or two, as my daughter gets older and needs more playing toys. She certainly can't do that in the apartment we live in now. I will be looking for something in my current rent range.



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  • Macaca
    12-30 06:57 PM
    A Bridge to a Love for Democracy (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30iht-letter30.html) By RICHARD BERNSTEIN | New York Times

    I write this, my last �Letter from America,� looking out my window at my snowy Brooklyn neighborhood. It�s midmorning Wednesday, three days after our Christmas weekend blizzard, and my street has yet to receive the benefit of a snowplow.

    Cars, as the prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow once put it, are impounded by the drifts. The city is still partly paralyzed, pleasantly, in a way. There�s nothing like a heavy snowfall to give one a bit of a respite, to turn the ordinary, like walking to the corner store, into a little adventure. And there�s the countrylike stillness of this city block filled with snow, absent the usual traffic.

    It seems a good moment, in other words, to pause and reflect. My thoughts turn to a very unsnowy moment in 1972 in a village called Lowu, which was the last village in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong just before the border with China. I was a graduate student in Chinese history and a stringer for The Washington Post going to the territory of Chairman Mao for the first time in my life.

    There was a short trestle bridge at Lowu. I�ve often wondered if it�s still there. The Union Jack flew at one side, the red flag of the People�s Republic of China at the other. The border town on the other side was a little fishing and farming village called Shenzhen, now a modern city of skyscrapers and shopping malls, an emblem of China�s amazing economic development.

    I was favorably disposed toward China as I strode across the bridge, ready to experience the radical egalitarianism of the Maoist revolution, which was generally viewed with favor among American graduate students specializing in China. I was a member of a group, moreover, that partook of a certain leftist orthodoxy. We had learned the �Internationale� so we could sing it for our revolutionary hosts. We were supposed to return to America and report the truth about China, which was, essentially, that it was the future and it worked.

    But it took only about 24 hours on that first journey to China for me utterly to change my mind and, indeed, to become a lifelong anti-Communist and devotee of liberal democracy, to find great wisdom in Winston Churchill�s dictum about its being the worst of all systems except for all the others.

    The noxious cult of personality around Mao was the first thing that effected my political transformation. But deeper than that was the pervasive odor of orthodoxy, the uniformity of it all, the mandatory pious declarations, which, if they were believed, were ridiculous, and, if they were forced, illustrated the terror of it all.

    Many of my American fellow travelers felt very differently about this. In my intense discomfort, I found myself in a sort of Menshevik minority, criticized by the majority for what I remember one person calling my �Darkness at Noon� mentality.

    Still, that discomfort, and the unwillingness of most of the others to experience it, has informed my work as a journalist ever since. I have to admit it: When I went to China as a correspondent for Time magazine seven years after that first trip, my impulse was not so much to look with fresh and impartial eyes on a country that had just opened up to a degree of foreign inspection as it was to expose what I felt many Americans were missing in those rhapsodic days. Namely, that the country under Mao and after belonged to the 20th-century totalitarian mainstream � that it was a poverty-stricken police state and not a viable alternative to Western ways.

    There was a degree of bias in this view, and it led me into some mistakes. On China, in particular, I was perhaps focused too single-mindedly on its totalitarian elements so that I underplayed other elements, notably the speed of change in China, and perhaps even the unsuitableness of many Western democratic ways for a country so essentially backward.

    And perhaps, too, I extrapolated a bit too much from the China experience when it came to other places and other times. When I covered academic life in the United States, for example, I tended to see vicious Maoist Red Guards in the phenomenon of what came to be called political correctness, and, while I don�t think this was entirely wrong, it was an exaggeration.

    And yet, it seems appropriate in this final column to say, as well, that my nearly 40 years in the journalism game haven�t shaken me from the essential belief that formed during that first, memorable visit to China.

    Ever since, despite all our infuriating faults, our wastefulness, our occasional self-satisfied sluggishness, our proneness to demagogy and other forms of anti-intellectualism, our crumbling infrastructure, the Fox News channel, the cult of Sarah Palin, the narcissistic self-indulgence of our urban elites, the detention center in Guant�namo Bay and our crisis-creating greed and shortsightedness � despite all that � I continue to believe that, not to put too fine a point on it, we�re better than they are.

    This doesn�t mean that I think we�re perfect, or that our impulse toward a kind of benevolent imperialism has always had benevolent results. But I have stuck for 40 years to a belief that, yes, our ways are superior � and by our ways I mean such things often taken for granted as a free press, strong civil institutions, an independent judiciary and, perhaps above all, the belief that the powers of the state need to be restrained, and that the institutions of government exist to serve the individual, not the other way around.

    The essential difference with China, even the much-changed China of today, and most of the other non-Western political cultures, is the absence of this sense of restraint, and the primacy of the collective over the individual.

    That�s the idea that I was actually groping toward when I crossed the bridge at Lowu. It�s the idea that I want to end with here on this snowy day in New York in my final sentence on this page. Goodbye.





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  • eb3_nepa
    11-21 05:49 PM
    So wait a minute!

    Endless discussions on Lou Dobbs are ok but starting a "Happy Thanksgiving" stress relief thread gets closed by the moderators??

    Half the stuff written in this thread is not related to immigration either, how about closing this thread and every other non-immigration related thead "Supermoderators"?



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  • ita
    07-14 11:24 AM
    Wll support campaign for EB3 . Please let this happen.
    Appreciate all the comments on how the initiative(s) won't work. But at the same time if they can in some way suggest what will work that will be great.
    I'm sure not doing anything will be not be a right thing .
    I do agree we have to make noice. Let's work on how to make effective noise.
    My thoughts are running on Letter/Call campaigns.
    Don't know anything about what should be done effectively.Else I would be posting it here.
    But for sure I'll support initiative(s) for EB3-I.

    Thank you.





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  • immique
    07-14 01:48 AM
    well said. people should realize that EB visa system is based on principles that are thought to benefit US. retrogressed EB2 categories cannot whine about EB1 saying that EB2 should be current also. personally I know many Physicians who have applied in EB2 and have been waiting for years even though many of them qualify for EB1. In the same manner EB3 cannot complain about EB2 saying that spill over should go to EB3 when EB2 is itself retrogressed. remember that the directive for the correct interpretation of the law came from Congress itself. This has actually revealed that EB2 was unfairly disadvantaged last year when all the spillovers got passed to EB3 while EB2 was unavailable. They may even consider to compensate retrogressed categories in EB2 with all those Visa numbers that were improperly given to EB3 ROW by giving EB3 ROW visas to EB2 retrogressed categories from this years and next years quota. I totally understand the plight of EB3 I and agree that there needs to be a solution for this. But complaining to State Department or USCIS will not change a thing as they are only there to follow the laws and not make any changes to the existing laws. campaign from the whole EB community has not produced much result this year to eliminate retrogression. I don't think campaign by one category (EB3) from just one country (India) is going to achieve the result by this letter campaign. rather, the efforts should be concentrated in ending retrogression for all the categories through effective legislation and can only be achieved by cooperation between all the categories.

    Disclaimer: I am an EB3-Indian with a PD of Oct 2003.

    Delax: I agree entirely with what you are saying. Your arguments are 100% valid. The part that I don't get is why are you trying so desperately hard to convince EB3-Indians that their letter campaign lacks merit?

    Remember, a drowning man will clutch on to a straw for hope. You are like a sailor in a boat trying to tell the drowning man that a straw is no good. So, if you cannot get Eb3-Indians to see your point-of-view, just lay off this thread. Do you really expect all EB3-Indians to say "Thanks to delax, we now see the folly of our arguments. Let's stop this irrational effort, and instead just do nothing!"

    I can assure you that despite being an EB3-Indian, I am not participating in this campaign. Because I know that it is a ridiculous argument to expect PD to take preference over skills. And honestly, I cannot come up with a single rational reason to demand a GC for me over any EB1 or EB2 applicant.

    To all you EB3-Indians, chisel this into your brain: The US immigration system wants EB1 first, then EB2 and then EB3. It doesn't matter what your qualifications are or what the profession is...what matters is in which employment-based category was your LC filed. If you think, you are skilled enough, then stop wasting time in arguing with EB2 folks. Use your skills to apply for EB1 (which is current) or EB2 and get your GC fast. Otherwise, get this chiselled into your head as well: You are less skilled than EB2 and EB1 (purely on the basis of the LC category), so it makes 100% sense that US will give you the lowest priority. Period.

    As I wrote earlier, I'm an EB3-Indian as well. Only differences being, I have still maintained my sanity, and I have the patience to wait for IV to deliver the official guidance on proceeding further.



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  • mallu
    01-28 02:46 PM
    Why should anybody listen to this guy? This guy doesnt really represent the facts.

    The fact is that he is against IMMIGRATION of any form. I am sure he denies the fact that fore-fathers were immigrants and came from a distant land.

    That is surely amnesia. What to say, one of my desi coworker who who got his citizenship recently has started "Why we need more people" . When asked about his case, "mine was different, because of y2k etc there were great demand around 1999-2000".





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  • sc3
    07-14 10:35 AM
    There is a lot of FUD being spread around this thread. Let me try to dispel one.

    1: Reverting rollover will only benefit EB3-ROW.

    WRONG!!. As stated in other threads the spillovers are used on whoever has been waiting the longest. That is the guiding principle that is allowing EB2-I getting the GCs ahead of China. If not it was high time the Chinese priority date becomes current. If we revert back the spill-over utilization, whoever has been waiting the longest, gets the GC first. So stop your FUD.


    People dont get sidetracked by the nay-sayers. If you would like to write to anyone, do write. If not anything else, we will at least get to hear back from the people whom we wrote to.

    People who are saying "IV does not support it, do dont do it". Excuse me, IV does not run our lives. If we want to help ourselves, we ought to be able to do it. Yes, we should not use IV's name without its authorization, that is wrong.

    People who say, I am EB3, but I think EB2s are right (in the sense that they are more entitled, they need to get the visas ahead of us etc. etc), good for you, but dont pull down those who don't agree with you. We have a brain to think for ourselves.





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  • hiralal
    06-06 10:58 PM
    to buy another house (if it is not distress property / from auction) just to put it on rent is stupidity ..risk is good if it is calculated ..to take foolish risk is foolishness ..anyway that is me. In this Country land is virtually unlimited !!! demand is low (see immigration ..they give majority GC's to people when they are 50 - 60 years old) and those who are young have smaller families because of high cost of living, way of living.
    to buy a house to put it on rent is big loss as there are millions of houses already competing for renters
    ONE more reason for those who are on H1/ EAD is that 90% of then job postings on DICE and other places ask for only citizens or GC holders.





    mariner5555
    04-08 11:10 PM
    I remember the 1990's UK housing crunch
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7336010.stm

    Being an energy saving geek, I also recommend buying something with a large south facing roof (for lots of solar panels).
    Hi Mark,
    a quick question - has IV thought about using the housing problem to push for faster GC processing (or for getting a very relaxed multi year EAD) ? a poll was conducted recently and as one would guess lots of legal immigrants are waiting for a GC before buying a house.
    I am not suggesting that giving GC's to legals would solve the problem but I am suggesting to use it as a selling point. (ofcourse at the micro level even if 1 house is sold ..then it helps the economy ..and if 100,000 houses are sold ..it definitely makes a difference)





    Macaca
    12-26 08:37 AM
    Freshmen Padding Their Independence (http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/25/AR2007122500994.html?hpid=sec-politics) Procedural Votes Become Safe Nays By Paul Kane | Washington Post, Dec 26, 2007

    Half a dozen freshman Democrats took to the House floor one late-October morning to cast their lot with Republicans.

    Their actions went unpunished by the Democratic leadership that day, as they have on many other occasions in recent weeks. The symbolic gesture -- casting nay votes on approving the House Journal, essentially the minutes of the previous day -- would have no bearing on the leadership's agenda.

    While they overwhelmingly support that agenda, the bloc of freshmen has begun casting votes against such minor procedural motions in an effort, Democratic sources and Republican critics say, to demonstrate their independence from their leadership. The number of votes that the potentially vulnerable newcomers to Capitol Hill cast against House leaders is tallied and watched closely by interest groups and political foes.

    Such is the political life of many of the 42 freshman House Democrats, a sizable number of them moderates and conservatives who must straddle the fence between supporting their party's interests and distancing themselves from a mostly liberal leadership as they gear up for their first reelection battle next fall.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other members of the party's leadership are happy to tolerate the independence on procedural matters. Less than three hours after opposing the late-October journal vote, the same six freshmen sided with Pelosi as Democrats tried, and failed, to override President Bush's veto of a bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years, legislation that Pelosi has called her "crown jewel."

    "I'm viewed as an independent. I'm viewed as a conservative Democrat," said Rep. Jason Altmire (Pa.), the first freshman to regularly oppose his party's leadership on the journal vote.

    Like several others, Altmire offered no explanation for voting against all but one of 18 roll calls on the routine measure, adding that he had no "pre-planned" rationale for the votes. "I'm certainly not going to win or lose my reelection based on my journal votes," he said.

    But the first reelection campaign in his conservative-leaning western Pennsylvania district could be a tough one. Bush won there by a comfortable nine percentage points in 2004. Districts such as Altmire's fueled the Democratic takeover of the House last year. They are blue-collar in attitude and red-hued in politics, particularly on issues such as abortion and gun rights.

    Dubbed the "majority makers" by Pelosi's leadership team, the freshmen have become a major front in the Democrats' battle to sustain and expand their majority next fall.

    Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst and author of the Rothenberg Political Report, said Republican hopes for shrinking the Democratic majority begin with what he calls "snapback candidates," who rode into office under the last election cycle's optimal conditions for Democrats and now face their first reelection contests.

    Protecting the 42 freshman Democrats, the largest partisan class since 73 Republicans took office in 1994, has been the top priority for key Democratic strategists such as Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.). The freshmen get special treatment from leaders, including a weekly meeting with Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.). And they receive frequent advice on how to vote from Emanuel and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

    Seven of the rookies have more than $1 million in cash on hand, and according to Rothenberg, more than half are in safe positions to win reelection. In addition, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee holds a more than 11-to-1 cash advantage over its Republican counterpart, a potential financial backstop for endangered freshmen.

    But the political environment has turned toxic in recent months as Democrats have been stymied in their effort to take Congress in their self-proclaimed new direction. Opinion polls show public approval ratings for Congress mired in the 20s, considerably lower than Bush's rating.

    In recent months, Democrats in battleground districts have been criticized by Republicans, who have tried to paint them as close to the new House leadership.

    "While these Democrats might claim to be independent voices for their districts, the differences between them and Nancy Pelosi are purely aesthetic," said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. This year, the GOP committee launched a Web site to track the percentage of votes that 28 of the freshmen cast with Pelosi, whom Republicans say will be a polarizing figure in conservative districts next fall.

    That is why procedural votes are important to freshmen, according to Democratic aides. House Republicans this year turned to a procedure known as a "motion to recommit," offering what is typically a routine method of sending bills back to committee as politically charged amendments. With a wink and a nod from Emanuel and Hoyer, some endangered freshmen frequently vote with Republicans on tricky GOP motions to keep their votes from being used against them in 30-second campaign sound bites.

    Some freshman Democrats have taken the idea of voting against their party leadership on procedural votes one step further, opposing mundane matters such as the journal vote.

    Altmire has sided with the opposition in 17 of 18 journal roll calls this year. Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) has cast 15 votes with the GOP. In the spring, only a few freshmen voted against the journal, but one recent vote drew 13 freshmen in opposition, and in another, 11 voted nay. Now a half-dozen or more regularly oppose whenever a roll call is held.

    Democratic leaders acknowledge that they have encouraged the freshmen to sometimes vote with Republicans on politically difficult issues, but deny that they have had any input on the Congressional Record votes.

    "We've given them very simple advice: Make sure you vote your district," Van Hollen said.

    As a result, Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), for example, has one of the lowest party-unity voting scores -- less than 84 percent -- of any House Democrat, according to washingtonpost.com's congressional database. The average House Democrat has voted with the majority on 92.5 percent of all votes.

    "They're trying to create separation. Our guys did it in '95 and '96," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), a member of the GOP class of 1994.

    At the time, freshman Republicans saw congressional popularity plummet during a budget fight that led to a series of federal government shutdowns. Fearful of being tied closely to then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), many freshmen also began voting no on the journal in a similar effort to distance themselves.



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