On the first day of the 116th Congress, the House of Representatives passed bills to end the Trump-imposed government shutdown which is causing hardship to hundreds of thousands of federal employees.

If Mr. Trump would take the time to check in with what’s happening in the real world, he might read about the divorced Army veteran who’d worked “three jobs to survive” before getting hired as a paralegal at the Federal Trade Commission — and who now has no idea if he’ll make the rent. He could hear from the single mother who says that she’ll have enough for rent — but not for food. He might be moved by the wife of a corrections officer wondering how her family will handle their “mortgage, day care and car payments” while her husband is working without pay. Or by the disabled Air Force vet who, having waited more than a year for “service-connected surgery,” cannot get final approval for her procedure until the shutdown ends.

One package of bills passed by the House (and agreed to by the Senate last year) would reopen nearly all the federal agencies that have been closed since December 22. Another bill would temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security.

But because of President Trump’s insistence on funding for a border wall (the one Mexico was supposed to pay for), all but a few principled Republicans voted to keep these agencies shut down and thus impose further misery.

Congressman Cline, despite his stated eagerness to end the shutdown, was not among the principled Republicans. And his answers to questions in an interview this morning indicate he won’t be satisfied until Trump is satisfied– whenever that will be.

Cline asserted, “My constituents want to see a wall.” Whether a majority of people in the Sixth District agree with Trump on a wall is questionable, but a better question is: How many of them are willing to continue shutting down large parts of the government to achieve that aim?

If you want to express your opinion to Cline about this or any other matters, you may do so via his website or by calling his office at (202) 225-5431.

For the past two years, I was the author of a website tracking Virginia’s Sixth District Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte. As a partisan liberal Democrat I had very little good to say about him, but I strove to be as accurate as possible.

As Goodlatte’s 26 years in Congress end today, I am retiring Goodlatte Watch and launching this website to track his successor, the new Sixth District Republican Congressman Ben Cline– with the same objective and the same commitment to accuracy.

Although I don’t expect to have much good to say about Cline either (he is welcome to surprise me), I want to start here with a compliment. In December he held open meetings with his future constituents in four cities that he failed to carry when he was elected in November– Harrisonburg, Staunton, Lexington and Roanoke. This kind of in-person outreach, allowing for give and take, is a refreshing contrast to Goodlatte’s refusal to hold any such meetings since 2013. I only hope Cline continues to hold such events regularly throughout the Sixth District and to schedule them at times convenient to the largest number of people (not just on weekday mornings and afternoons, as he did in December).

I also welcome his stated commitment to bipartisanship. I hope this carries over into a willingness to compromise on divisive issues facing the nation– even when it means defying the leaders of his own party.

On the other hand I was not reassured by an interview he did last month with radio talk show host John Fredericks in which his rightwing, pro-Trump views were on full display. He was more eager to trash Nancy Pelosi (whom he disparaged repeatedly) than he was to lay out any sort of positive agenda to help the people of the Sixth District. When he did talk about what he wanted to accomplish, it was mostly in terms of cutting federal funding for Planned Parenthood unrelated to abortions, slashing environmental protections and shutting down certain government agencies “permanently.”

I sent Cline an email weeks ago asking which government agencies he wants to do away with, but have yet to get a reply.  If by some chance I hear back from him, I will be pleased to share his response with the readers of Cline Watch.

I welcome any ideas, tips or questions.