Yesterday, after a series of votes on amendments, the Senate passed H.R. 2764 as Amended; Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008. The bill itself passed easily, 81-12. However, Sen. Sam Brownback offered two anti-abortion amendments, one of which passed. Brownback Amdt. No. 2707; To prohibit funding of organizations that support coercive abortion has an intimidating sound to it. Who wants to give money to an organization that supports coercive abortion? No one I know. Yet, forty-two Democrats, plus GOP Sens. Collins, Snowe, and Specter didn’t fall for it. I’m not sure what all is in the amendment, but it passed 48-45. Of course, it wouldn’t have passed if Democratic Sens. Casey, Conrad, and Ben Nelson had not voted for it.
Brownback’s second amendment, to prevent contributions to organizations that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning, failed 41-53. But, again, it had some Democratic support: Sens. Bob Casey and Ben Nelson. GOP Sens. Collins, Lugar, Murkowski, Smith, Snowe, Specter, Stevens, and Warner all voted against it.
Bob Casey has been a progressive vote on most issues. But he screwed us on stem-cell research, where we fell one vote short of overriding the president’s veto, and he screwed us today. It’s these costly votes that are going to bring him a well-funded primary opponent in 2012.
Orwell lives.
anyway, I can’t actually read the amendment in question (2707) as the link (Amdt. 2707)to the amendment from the senate.gov page has no results.
casey that piece of shit is simply a prolife scumbag. That is why so many of us were infuriated when the dem powerstructure pushed him over the true dem candidate.
He will never vote for anything at all that supports a womens right to chose. He will never support stem-cell research.
If the dems power structure continues to go against the majority positions of the people, they will find that they
ARE TALKING TO A VERY EMPTY HOUSE.
Not only is he an anti-choice asshole, he hates Planned Parenthood too, and by extension , all the poor and low-income women who use that as their primary source of regular gynelogic care. You know, for Pap smears and cancer screening. And what he votes for is to take away PP’s funding so they can’t provide any services.
He’s a piece of shit.
It really drives me crazy when these anti-women jerks get a partial exemption because they are liberal about most things. If they won’t stand up for what is “conceivably” the most important right for half the population, I have no use for them.
But then I’m a single-issue, ideological pursit, so feel free to disregard anything I say.
What annoys me is that it seems he will vote for anything on the pro-life agenda, even if it is so transparently silly that senators like Stevens, Lugar, and Warner don’t go for it.