Thursday, May 03, 2007

MIGOP votes no on Hate Crime Bill

The House passed the Hate Crime Bill 237-180 today (which expands federal hate crime categories to include violent attacks against gays and people targeted because of gender), but not before the Republicans tried a few tricks.

From
Americablog:
Steny Hoyer and John Conyers just pulled a fast one on the GOP. The GOP has been refusing to support the hate crimes bill because it doesn't include members of the US Armed Forces and senior citizens. Conyers just rose and basically said, okay, I'll add them. The Republicans' response? Uh, no.

The Republicans have been railing for days about how this legislation doesn't cover our Armed Forces and senior citizens, and now that the Dems offer to put our Armed Forces and seniors in this legislation, the Republicans said no and affirmatively stopped the Democrats from doing it anyway.

That means the Republicans had no intent on helping our Armed Forces and seniors, on protecting them. It was just a stunt. The GOP leaders in Congress just got up and used our Armed Forces and seniors as political fodder when they had no intent on actually doing anything to help our Armed Forces and seniors.
Of course it was a stunt. The Republicans are good at playing games instead of doing what they were elected to do - govern.

By the way, all of Michigan's Republicans rubber-stamped Bush (who said earlier today he will veto the bill) by voting no: Dave Camp, Vernon Ehlers, Peter Hoekstra, Joe Knollenberg, Thad McCotter, Candice Miller, Mike Rogers, Fred Upton, Timothy Walberg

And all of Michigan's Democrats voted yes: John Conyers, John Dingell, Dale Kildee, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Sander Levin, Bart Stupak

Update: Go to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood to read some additional background information on the bill and Mr. Rogers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Republicans are good at playing games instead of doing what they were elected to do - govern.

Could of avoided last November's drubbing had they taken this lesson to heart. Of course, they can play all the games with the bill they want when they've got Bush's veto to count on.

Lew Scannon said...

Funny how Bush has finally started use that veto thing now. Hate crime legislation would effectively make felons out of much of Bush's base.