On Thursday, by a vote of 286 to 138, the House passed the bipartisan Senate-approved version of the bill — one that includes added protections for LGBT, Native American, and undocumented victims of domestic violence. All 138 votes against the bill were Republicans.
A watered down Republican version of the bill, which was offered as a substitute amendment, failed to garner enough votes to slow the process. It was struck down by a vote of 257 to 166. Sixty Republicans voted against their own party’s replacement measure.
Once again, the somewhat-less-insane minority of the GOP caucus in the House broke from the numerically dominant crazies, and teamed with Democrats to pass key legislation. (They did the same thing with the debt ceiling tax cliff and Hurricane Sandy relief.) Part of the calculation is certainly political, though I like to think that there still are some Republicans that are motivated, at least on occasion, not only by some degree of rationality, but even empathy and other normal human feelings. In any case, it will be interesting to see whether this repeats as a way of dealing with the sequester.
IMO it is relevent how the Minnesota delegation voted as well as the rest of the Republicans.
The Cantor bill was approved with 60 Republicans rejecting it … those supporting the weakened version included Michele Bachmann (R-MN-06), John Kline (R-MN-02) and Erik Paulsen (R-MN-03).
The Senate version was approved with 87 Republicans bucking the party leadership. Michele Bachmann voted against the Senate version.
Erik Paulsen put out a press release stating he voted for VAWA yet failed to acknowledge which version he truely supported. Call it political cover for an upcoming Senate run.
Cantor lost this won after besting Tim Walz on the STOCK Act last year.
Oops … I forgot to mention that although the Senate version is approved, the sequester means that funding will be cut … the prelimimary impact is projected as follows :
—112,190 fewer victims would have access to domestic violence programs and shelters;
—Approximately 64,000 fewer victims would have assistance in obtaining protection orders, crisis intervention and counseling, sexual assault services, hospital based advocacy, transitional housing services, and help with civil legal matters;
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 1 trackback }