Look - I'm as conservative as the next guy, if not more so. I'm just trying to understand the other side of this. Logically, I think it could be argued that he represented Nebraskan's well by getting them all of the (supposed) benefits of the bill w/o any of the costs. In some senses, depending on how well negoiated, he gave Nebraska a good standing under the 10th.
Now - you and I know it's complete bullshit and no better than wiping their ass with COTUS, but think about it for a minute. If my previous paragraph has any truth to it, he represented his constituents well... while pissing on COTUS at the same time...
It's just a line of thought. I put no weight into it.
Maybe he did - although the difference between second-class seats and first-class seats is a bit irrelevant when both are on the Titanic.
However, what he utterly failed to do is to act as a Senator; what we are seeing right now are the inevitable consequences of one of the stupidest Constitutional amendments in history - providing for the popular election of senators. Prior to that amendment, Senators were chosen by the legislatures of the states they represented; they therefore had a constituency that was not just a group of individuals who voted for them, but rather the state qua state that they represented. That mechanism effectively meant that senators were more inclined to act in the best interests of the country as a whole, rather than simply as glorified Representatives out to get whatever they could for their voters, regardless of the expense to the country as a whole.
The Senate was originally supposed to act as a counterweight to the House, which would be dominated more by parochial demagogic actors than by truly national legislators; as such, it was imperative that the senators be chosen by a group that both represented the people themselves, but yet were not simply co-extensive with the people themselves. That is what the Founders achieved by having the state legislatures choose the senators. By throwing that provision out, we almost literally threw the baby out with the bath-water, and basically converted the senators into glorified super-representatives, with all of the prerogatives of demagogues, and none of the felt duties or obligations to look after the interests of the nation as a whole.
As such, no, Mr. Nelson is not acting as a good Senator, nor as a good steward of the trust that was reposed in him when he assumed the office of United States Senator. Mr. Nelson has joined all of the other pigs wallowing in the Augean stables into which the Democrats have turned Capitol Hill.
Oink, Oink!
