Sneaky, But Not Very Convincing

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex) is sponsoring the Justice For Victims of Trafficking Act, which creates a special fund to help victims of human trafficking.  It's that rare piece of bipartisan legislation, a "we like puppies " bill, and it sailed through the Senate Judiciary Committee on its way to the Senate floor for slam-dunk passage.

Here's a slightly uncomfortable truth -- very seldom do our members of Congress actually read the bills they vote on.  It's impractical.  The 113th Congress of 2013-14 introduced 10,637 bills and resolutions.  Many bills are hundreds of pages in length, some are thousands.  (That much reading would take too much time away from crucial fundraising dinners!)

But seriously, they have staff for that.  Staff members wade through all the bill's verbiage, and distill it down to a pithy summary easily digestible by almost anyone, even elected officials.  Those summaries are what's discussed in committee.  Right, wrong or indifferent, it's just the way things are.

Now, after Committee approval, suddenly every Democrat on the Judiciary committee is crying foul because, post-committee, some Republican somewhere (Cornyn's staff? Another?  Who knows?) slipped some Hyde Amendment anti-abortion rights language into the trafficking bill without really telling anyone.  The R's feebly claim it was in there all along, but the D's furiously and unanimously disagree and say the bill will die unless the R's take that anti-abortion shit out of there.

The Republicans are, in this case, like Sylvester with feathers on his lips.  "Tweety Bird?  No, haven't seen him.  Why do ask?"  Not very convincing.


More importantly, human trafficking means prostitution and the sex slave trade.  And the Republicans see nothing wrong with tying abortion restrictions to a human trafficking victims bill.

Brilliant!