Congressman Mark Schauer is not everything a progressive voter would want. While his record so far includes no support for any major regressive legislation, his progressive scorecard gives him a rating of just 24 out of a possible 100. That’s mostly because Schauer has failed to support a large number of progressive bills that have entered the House of Representatives. Schauer is not proactively progressive. Rather, he seems to be hunkered down, just trying to get through his first term in office without sticking his neck out.

However, the Republican opponent that Representative Schauer will face in 2010 would be much worse. I’m not just saying that based upon the Republican’s campaign promises, but rather, his record in Congress. You see, Congressman Schauer is facing a sort of political zombie – former U.S. Representative Tim Walberg, who has risen from the political grave to haunt Schauer with a rematch of the 2008 election in which Walberg lost the seat.

In the 110th Congress, the last term that Walberg served, he had a progressive scorecard of less than half that of Schauer: Walberg earned just 10 progressive points out of a possible 100. Walberg’s right wing legislative score, on the other hand, was 86 percent.

The 7th congressional district of Michigan clearly deserves better than Tim Walberg, but Mark Schauer hasn’t done much to earn the loyal support of progressive voters either. What’s the solution?

A Green Party candidacy in the district could go a long way to improving the quality of political representation there. The 2008 contest between Schauer and Walberg was tight, with just a two percent difference between votes for the two candidates. Currently, as Schauer faces Walberg again, this close competition will encourage Congressman Schauer to begin behaving more regressively in the House of Representatives, in order to take votes away from Walberg. However, if Schauer perceived the margin of victory as being threatened by a progressive Green candidate, he would be motivated to act more strongly to promote a progressive agenda in the House during the current term.

A Green Party candidate probably wouldn’t win against either Schauer or Walberg, but could change the political equation to force Schauer to get his act together and support a legislative agenda that a progressive Democratic base could appreciate.