Extremist Feeney's got to go

Kosmas clearly the best choice for Congressional District 24

Govtrack (www.govtrack.us) is a nonpartisan, Web-based tracker of Congress that tallies every vote by every member of the Senate and the House. On Govtrack's ideological meter, just six individuals out of 535 senators and House members rank to the right of Rep. Tom Feeney, the Oviedo Republican representing Florida's 24th District, which covers parts of Volusia, Brevard, Seminole and Orange counties.

Recent votes show how extreme and out of step Feeney is with his more moderately conservative district. He voted against a bill strengthening prohibitions against pay discrimination (it passed the House, 247-178). He voted against the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act that strengthens federal regulations of tobacco products (it passed, 326-102, with 96 Republicans in favor). He opposed a bill strengthening and expanding President Bush's 2003 AIDS initiative with accountability provisions (it passed, 303-115, with 75 Republicans in favor). He opposed the 2008 Foreclosure Prevention Act (it passed, 272-152, with 45 Republicans in favor). And he opposed a highway bill strengthening infrastructure inspection standards (it passed, 367-55, with 137 Republicans in favor).

All that just in the second half of July. Feeney's six years in Congress follow the same pattern. He's not just anti-government. He's anti governance. Set aside charges of corruption that have dogged Feeney (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ranks him among the 22 most corrupt members of Congress) and the pride he takes in his abrasive partisanship. Just on his votes and his poor record of constituent services, the case to replace this incumbent builds itself.

Feeney faces Jason Paul Davis, a moderate Port Orange Republican with more passion than sustained job experience, political experience or campaign funds to pose a serious challenge. Feeney's opposition is almost certain to be decided by the Democratic primary, which pits Clint Curtis, the Titusville computer programmer and longtime Feeney foe, against New Smyrna Beach's Suzanne Kosmas, the planner and developer who served eight years in the Florida House. She was term-limited in 2006, by which time she'd reached the second-most powerful post in the House Democratic leadership.

Curtis is a sharp, tough campaigner who sometimes echoes Feeney's abrasive style. He won 42 percent of the vote when he challenged Feeney in 2006 (48 percent in Volusia County). Compared with Kosmas' measured style and appreciation of bipartisanship, Curtis projects a dogmatically liberal approach to policy that would have him as out-of-step with district constituents as Feeney's dogmatically reactionary approach.

Kosmas has never pretended to be a liberal firebrand. She's more of a gradual reformer within the bounds of the politically possible. It's the kind of low-key but effective pragmatism that enabled her to build consensus with Republicans in Tallahassee on issues like education, child care, child safety and crime-victim advocacy. She wasn't interested in score-keeping or branding her name on bills, but in seeing that issues she cared about found their way into law. She succeeded, whether it was to help more working families pay their child care bills or to improve financial compensation for crime victims. Kosmas' experience, her continued involvement with her community before and after she left public office, and her deliberate style make her, clearly, the better choice -- not just against Curtis, but against Feeney in November.

Kosmas can be cautious to a fault. Regarding issues likely to face the next Congress, she is not willing to talk tax increases to address a budget deficit projected to go past the half-trillion dollar mark, though she does favor a carbon tax, a more aggressive federal involvement in alternative-energy research and pay-as-you-go budgeting rules. She supports universal health care, opposes the war in Iraq (and did, in fact, oppose it publicly before it began in 2003) and favors more large-scale investments in infrastructure repair as a way to re-start the economy rather than additional stimulus checks in taxpayers' mailboxes.

If Kosmas' involvement in community issues in the past 35 years is an indication, her constituent services would be equally reliable. In Tom Feeney, voters of District 24 have a grating extremist more interested in ideological warfare than building working communities. That era is dead. The country is in need of leaders who can provide it serious governance across ideological conceits. As she proved for eight years in the Legislature, Suzanne Kosmas is that kind of leader.

• RECOMMENDATION: Suzanne Kosmas for Congress, District 24.