Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens
By Dana Milbank
Friday, May 9, 2008; A03
It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother’s Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.
On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day,” when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.
“Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote,” he announced.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt’s request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.
It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.
Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.”
By voting against it?
If Boehner’s explanation doesn’t make much sense, he’s been under a great deal of stress lately.
Well, I’ll give them this: at least they were honest for once.
And yes, since one of those voting against was Dana (“Taliban”) Rohrabacher, a small portion of whose district falls into the Random Lengths News circulation area, I do feel honor bound to see that this runs in our paper. His district is R+6, and Debbie Cook is gunning for him.
