The House passed $9.7 billion in Superstorm Sandy relief earlier today in a vote of 354 to 67. Among the 67 Republicans voting against the relief funding were all of Wisconsin's Republican members of the House with the exception of Rep. Reid Ribble. Reps. Sean Duffy, Paul Ryan, Tom Petri, and Jim Sensenbrenner voted against providing the much needed emergency relief.

In the past the representatives have all been advocates of securing emergency relief when it means the federal funds will be provided to voters in their districts.

Sensenbrenner was one of the leaders in an effort to secure aid for Wisconsin when flash floods impacted part of his district in 2007. He wrote, "The addition of Jefferson County, a portion of which is in the 5th Congressional District, is welcome news and will provide residents of Jefferson County the help they need as a result of flood damages. This aid will offer some relief to Jefferson County residents who have endured great losses."

After portions of his district were hit by severe flooding in 2008 Ryan said, “I have been inspired by the support and compassion demonstrated by Wisconsinites who have reached out to help their neighbors in need. To supplement this tremendous community support, I have worked to help secure additional assistance from the federal government."

When flooding impacted Northern Wisconsin in June of 2012 Duffy toured the region and vowed to make sure his constituents would recover with help from government disaster relief, "I'm going to do all that I can to make sure I'm gathering all the data, so if the resources are available, I'm going to fight to make sure we get them."

Photo from Talking Point Memo's Sahil Kapur.

Jesse Russell

Co-Editor

Jesse was born and raised in Connecticut, began blogging in 1997, and moved to Madison in 2003. In 2005, he co-founded dane101 along with Kristian Knutson and Shane Wealti. In addition to helping nearly a dozen contributors run this website he's helped launch various events in the city including What's Your Damage?!, the MadPubQuiz of Awesomeness, the Fire Ball Masquerade, Dane101's Freakin' Halloweekend, and more.