Interesting Who Skipped This Senate Vote

On Thursday, 6 September 2007 The US Senate had a roll call vote on Brownback Amdt. No. 2707 to H.R. 2764 (Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008) The purpose of the amendment: "To prohibit funding of organizations that support coercive abortion."

The amendment PASSED 48 to 45 with 7 not voting. It now goes to a House/Senate conference to iron out the differences.

For Iowa Sen. Grassley voted for it, Sen. Harkin (the alledged Catholic) voted against it. Sadly Harkin will be 1 of the Senate representatives to the conference committee. Given that the Dems on the committee ( Spector, the 1 Rep) voted against the amendment, I suspect (no surprize) the Democratic leadship is trying to kill it in committee. & given the same attitude prevails in the House leadership, the amendment faces an uphill battle.

But what is even more interesting is the list of names of those who didn't vote. It included Sens. Biden, Clinton, Dodds, & Obama on the Democratic side & Sen. McCain on the Republican. With the exception of Amendment sponsor Brownback they are every 2008 presidential candidate currently in the Senate. Interesting, isn't it? It could be mere coincidence, but I suspect it was much more. I suspect that they intentionally missed the vote to avoid going on record for an issue that they see could hurt them either way the voted.

(The other 2 senators not voting were Lincoln-D & Craig-R. Given Craig's troubles it was no surrprize he didn't vote.)

Pray that this amendment is kept a part of the bill by the committee & that it gets sent to President Bush as a part of the final bill.