Senate Judiciary Committee Anti-abortion and Human Trafficking Bill Stalled

A unanimously passed bill through their committee including co-sponsorship from two Democrats and no one noticed the language until it hit the floor of the full Senate.  This bill could have passed and been signed into law by this president only to have it later used against not only him but any other Democrat that runs for any office and no one caught it until it was nearly too late.  Either our elected officials have too much vacation on the brain, are too busy jockeying for camera positions or have hired the most inept staff known to man, whichever it is, they need to wake up and realize that maybe this was how so many State Governments got so many draconian laws passed and made the Koch Brothers the happiest men in America.

This comes via an article titled “GOP Quietly Inserts Anti-Abortion Provision In Human Trafficking Bill” by Sahil Kapur for Talking Point Memo reporting “It may be the quintessential story of the 114th Congress: An overwhelmingly bipartisan bill has hit a brick wall in the Senate over an unrelated partisan dispute over abortion.  Senate Republican quietly added language to an anti-human-trafficking bill that would expand longstanding Hyde Amendment limitations on the use of federal funds for abortion. It would impose abortion restrictions, without a time limit, on how the government can use a new stream of revenues collected from perpetrators of human trafficking as part of a victim's fund.  Remarkably, Democrats didn't notice the provision until this week. Filed on January 13 and cosponsored by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Ron Wyden (OR), the bill unanimously passed the Judiciary Committee on February 26. It is currently being considered by the full Senate.  Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), a sponsor of the bill, dismissed the Democrats' objections, saying it's "simply untrue" that senators didn't know what was in the legislation as it has been in the public domain for more than a month.  "That presupposes that none of the staff briefed their senators on what was in the legislation — that nobody read a 68-page bill and that senators would vote for a bill, much less cosponsor it without reading it and knowing what's in it," Cornyn told reporters on Tuesday. "None of that strikes me as plausible."

Great job, John Cornyn, as if you appear here without the help and assistance of a woman, great job all those staffers who put in the wording that is now exposed as if no woman was ever present in your life.  How can anyone say that they believe in the rights of women then turn right around and allow government to tell them what they must do with their bodies?  How can any woman who has been empowered by those that fought, bled and died to give them the right to speak for themselves and to be heard, have anything to do with taking away those rights?  How can any man, look his mother, wife, aunts, girlfriends and daughters in the face and tell them to demand respect from any man when the very man they trust so much would attempt to demote them?

Democrats wake up and start reading those bills before you attach your name to it or say yes.  You are being paid big bucks to sit on your rear, make not movement toward moving this country forward, take many and long vacations and hire people to read these things for you.  There is no excuse for you missing this provision in this bill, no excuse at all unless you wanted to.