What?!?
I’m trying to decide if this is real. Did they really vote against Mother’s Day? Now as I recall-they voted in favor of Christmas last December. What gives? Voting in favor of mom seems even less controversial than voting in favor of Jesus, especially in a governmental body that values the separation of church and state.
On Wednesday, the House took up the seemingly uncontroversial H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day.” The resolution initially passed 412 to 0, until Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) rose in protest:
Mr. Speaker, I ask for a recorded vote because I’m sure every member wants their mother to know that they have supported the goals of Mother’s Day.
Tiahrt’s mother, however, may be disappointed to know that her son did not support Mother’s Day. He and 177 other Republicans decided to cast their vote against mothers.
From the Washington Post:
Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.”
And then there is Veto Vito Fossella:
There’s the case of one member of his caucus, Rep. Vito Fossella (N.Y.); the father of three from Staten Island yesterday announced that he has a fourth, a 3-year-old love child with a woman from Virginia. That admission was prompted by his drunken-driving arrest in Virginia last week, when he told police he was on his way to see his daughter. “I think Mr. Fossella is going to have some decisions to make over the weekend,” Boehner said at his news conference yesterday, cutting Fossella loose. Fossella was spotted on the House floor, in tears, speaking to the chaplain.
For the record, Fossella did not participate in the Mother’s Day vote.
You can head over to Think Progress and watch the video too.
I Wonder how Mr Kuhl voted.
(Dana Milbank seems to think puppies and kittens may be the next target)
Nobody voted against the bill. They voted for a motion to table the bill, which is a procedural vote. The bill itself passed unanimously.
The Republicans were going through a couple of days of obstruction so they started putting up procedural motions before every bill. Normally, feel-good resolutions like the Mothers’ Day bill don’t have a preceding procedural vote.
But every important bill does, and those procedural votes are almost always straight party-line votes. So nobody says that a MOC voted against a bill if they voted for the procedural vote that would kill the bill.
Kuhl, to his credit, doesn’t participate in the temper tantrums of the House. A few months ago, Republicans staged a walk-out, and he didn’t walk out. And he didn’t vote for the procedural vote on Mothers’ day. Here are Kuhl’s votes:
http://www.congressdb.com/votedb/allvotes/400642/2/110/hr/1113/
He voted against the procedural vote, which means he broke ranks
Oops, got that wrong - He voted against tabling the motion to reconsider. In other words, he voted to kill the bill on the procedural vote. I take back all the good things I said earlier.
Thanks, Rotten, Regardless-This whole thing is just another example of how our time and money is wasted in Congress, specifically by the Republicans in this instance. Throwing a monkey wrench into the whole system to stop the wheels of government from turning on the important issues. Sophmoric at best. A tragic waste of time, money and (in the case of the war) human lives at worst.
Well said!