The Southern Highland Reader

Heath Shuler

STATEWIDE/NATIONAL–According to Politico.com, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, like her father, is a famous personal list-maker.

She keeps track of favors, of people who are on her good side, and of people on her bad side.

And apparently 11th District congressman Heath Shuler has worked his way to the top of the “bad” list, surpassing even Rush Limbaugh, who Pelosi considers beneath contempt.

Here’s part of what Politico.com wrote:

No Democrat has done quite so much in so short a time to arouse Pelosi’s disdain as the failed-Redskins-quarterback-turned-ambitious-North-Carolina-congressman.

The conservative, anti-abortion Shuler would have made the list for voting against both bank bailout bills and the stimulus package, but the way he went about it didn’t help; Shuler told an audience back home that “House leadership and Senate leadership have really failed” on the $787 billion package.

The thing that riles Pelosi most, according to several House aides, is that she believes Shuler’s motives are as much political as they are ideological — and that he’s picking a fight with her to position himself for a run against Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) next year.

Unless Shuler is planning a long House career, picking a fight with Pelosi may indeed have its advantages: His 2006 opponent, incumbent GOP Rep. Charles Taylor, scored points by portraying Shuler as a Pelosi acolyte.

“I don’t know if Shuler is talking without thinking or if he’s just making the calculation that distancing himself from Pelosi is never a bad thing to do,” said a senior House leadership aide.

Read the whole piece here.

REGIONAL–The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s 14th District, based in Sylva, will receive roughly $16 million dollars in infrastructure spending money from the federal stimulus package President Obama signed into law Tuesday.

14th District engineer Joel Setzer told the Asheville Citizen-Times’ Dale Neal that 16 million won’t buy much.

Writes Neal:

Those projects include a major upgrade of N.C. 225 from Zirconia to Interstate 26 in Henderson County, and replacing bridges at Mud Creek in Henderson County, Hemphill Creek in Haywood County and State Road 1393 in Cherokee County.

“These are projects that probably would have had to wait until the economy improved,” Setzer said. But the stimulus funds are still a down payment on needed maintenance on area highways and bridges. “While the state is getting $735 million for roads and bridges, DOT had identified $5 billion of projects,” he said. “This is a help, but we could certainly use a lot more for highway projects and infrastructure.”

WASHINGTON-11th District Congressman Heath Shuler was one of 11 Democrats to join all Republicans in voting against the Obama administration’s $819 billion stimulus bill yesterday in Washington.

The bill passed 244-188.

Shuler is comfortable in and apparently well-suited to his role as a blue dog Democrat, and his votes against bailouts for big banks and the big three resonate with much of his rural constituency. Still, Shuler will be criticized for his departure from what is a broadly popular stimulus package, and some constituents will worry that by venturing from the party line too assertively — particularly in instances like this in which the outcome is clear — he could damage his influence in the new administration.

Here’s a story from the Hendersonville Times News.