I felt there was little veracity in Matt Asay's skewed misrepresentation of Congressman Orton's voting record and party affiliation (Readers' Forum, Aug. 18).
Bill Orton is in no precarious situation - he is a Democrat, and a conservative one at that. Orton finds himself in the Democratic Party for one reason - he believes in working people and doesn't publicly attack them as "having no values" like Republicans estranged from reality.Mr. Asay did not offer an accurate summary of the congressman's votes. First of all, he did not support the instatement of homosexuals in the military, he did not endorse experimentation with aborted fetal tissue, and he has won the respect of both Democrats and Republicans alike.
Mr. Asay does not understand the A to Z bill, which Orton withdrew his support from. It is a sloppily crafted bill calling for 56 hours of open debate where members are limited to five or 10 minutes to make multibillion-dollar decisions - fiscal liberalism at its most horrific. Its sponsors, Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., and William Zeliff, R-N.H., did not offer a single spending cut amendment on 11 of 13 appropriations bills when both had full opportunity to do so under the open rule. In fact, neither of them offered a single spending cut amendment last year, proving that A to Z is a fraudulent election-year scheme.
Michael A. Thomas
Salt Lake City