» Ethics pass Senate, while naysayers go down the Hatch
18 January 2007 - 9:22pm
Ethics pass Senate, while naysayers go down the Hatch
By media girl
Voting against the bill were Republicans Tom Coburn (news, bio, voting record) of Oklahoma and Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record) of Utah. Sens. Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan., and Tim Johnson (news, bio, voting record), D-S.D., did not vote.
So Coburn and Hatch opposed even the appearance of supporting ethical behavior in the Senate. I'm not really surprised that the holdouts are Republicans (which is really a sad thing, if you actually stop to think about it). But let's look at the rest here:
Johnson is in the hospital after having a stroke.
What is Sam "religion prison" Brownback's excuse? How's he going to explain this during his expected presidential candidacy?
About author
media girl also blogs at other places.
Similar entries
- Republicans try to defeat Republicans to pass Voting Rights Act renewal
- With a Senator's pension, who needs bankruptcy anyway?
- GOP blocks debate on their war, insists on ill-equipped, un-trained troops
- Have you noticed how the Republicans paint investigations into their misdeeds as the problem?
- Politics of cowardice
store
Buy stuff here.
» Ethics pass Senate, while naysayers go down the Hatch
Comments
Coburn voted against the bill as a symbolic protest. He believes the bill doesn't go nearly far enough to eliminate corruption and pork. And if you've been following the Senate at all over the past couple years, you'll know that Coburn has been out in front with the PorkBusters movement.
It was Coburn, for example, that introduced the amendment to grant a line-item veto in S.1. Coburn was also heavily involved last week when DeMint introduced the earmark transparency amendment that Reid, Durbin, and Kennedy (all Democrats, go figure) tried to kill.
I don't know what Hatch was thinking. But then who does.
That seems to me hardly an anti-"corruption and pork" issue, and more about giving the president unprecedented power to lord it over the entire process, and there's no reason to assume a president is any more "pure" than any other politician, is there?
http://www.kten.com/Global/story.asp?S=5960242
Actually Coburn voted against the bill because the Dem leaders wouldn't allow his amendment to be voted on that would prevent lawmakers from adding earmarks that benefit their family members. Its easy to assume the worst about someone you disagree with politically but its always nice to not distort their positions. If you had bothered to look at Coburn's website you would have realized why he voted against the bill.
I looked at Hatch's also but he had no press release on the bill yet.
my bad, i didn't see someone had beaten me to explaining Coburn's reasoning