Senate to battle over defense policy bill

[unhappycamper]

Senate to battle over defense policy bill
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Oct 21, 2009 13:50:09 EDT

Final action on the 2010 defense authorization bill could come Thursday, with a slugfest to decide whether the $681 billion measure will include a controversial hate-crimes provision.

Under procedures set up by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate will vote on a cloture motion that would cut off debate and bring the bill to a final vote.

To do that, Reid would have to get 60 votes in favor of his motion. Leadership aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity said they expect more than 60 senators to vote for the bill, even though there is strong Republican opposition to including the hate-crimes provision.

There are two reasons to believe that Reid will succeed. First, when the Senate was debating the defense bill in July, 63 senators voted on a similar cloture vote to keep the hate-crimes provision. Then two weeks ago, a key Republican, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that he supports the bill even though he does not support the inclusion of provisions making sexual abuse, assaults and murder a federal crime if the person committed the act because of the victim’s race, color, religion, national origin or gender identification.

“Elections have consequences,” said McCain, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, referring to the fact that Democrats control the House, Senate and White House, giving them the ability to pass hate-crimes legislation that had been blocked in the past.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/10/military_defenseauthorization_102109w/

[brendan120678]

1. Hate Crimes legislation in a defense spending bill...

Lovely. I hate how all these riders and amendments that have nothing to do with the actual bill get added on.
And I am not just talking about defense appropriations - it happens all the freeking time!

I think that for any funding appropriations bill, all riders and amendments should be permanently disallowed.