Political News and Commentary with the Right Perspective. NAVIGATION
  • Front Page
  • News
  • Multimedia
  • Tags
  • RSS Feed


  • Advertise on RightMichigan.com


    NEWS TIPS!

    Get the RightMighigan.com toolbar!


    RightMichigan.com

    Buzz

    Who are the NERD fund donors Mr Snyder?

    Raise the curtain.

    House Dem obstruction on partial birth abortion ban threatens to shut down chamber!


    By Nick, Section News
    Posted on Wed May 28, 2008 at 07:31:24 AM EST
    Tags: (all tags)

    What do Michigan Democrats want to do, sternly tell lawbreakers to go to their rooms and "take a time out?"  Because without sentencing guidelines that's about what we'd be reduced to.  

    They dragged their feet as long as they could but in the end twenty-four House Democrats joined fifty House GOPers late yesterday in approving Senate Bill 776, a SCOTUS approved ban on the barbaric procedure known as partial birth abortion.  Oh, and "as long as they could" works out to four months and five days.

    That's how long the bill was vacuum sealed and tucked away in committee without so much as a hearing.  Four months and five days for a supposedly pro-life Speaker to even allow a vote on a bill outlawing the brutal murder of viable human children literally a moment away from taking their first breaths.  For a vote on a bill that wound up with broad (BROAD) bi-partisan support mirroring the support it receives in public survey after public survey.  (74-32.)

    So all's well that ends well, right?  Then why did Right to Life describe yesterday's actions by House Democrats as "skullduggery?"

    Read on...

    SB 776 effectively outlaws partial birth abortion.  So lets say a man takes a baby by her feet, stabs a needle into the base of her skull, punches a tube into her brain, sucks it right out and then crushes the little girl's skull.  He'd be murderer.  A lawbreaker.  And his punishment?  Nada.  Nothing.  Zilch.  Zero.  A walk.  We find the defendant guilty and sentence him to have a nice day.

    That's because the sentencing guidelines for the freshly illegal activity are contained in a companion bill, Senate Bill 1049.  

    After voting on 776 yesterday evening the House Democrats began stalling, taking up other items, hoping 1049 would slip through the cracks and pass from the minds of pro-lifers in the chamber.  Thank God for Jack Hoogendyk.

    Smelling a rat the Representative quickly snuck an amendment onto an insurance related piece of legislation, tie-barring it to another pro-life bill.  It was a move that first led Majority Floor Leader Steve Tobocman to crass profanities on the House floor, then to adjournment with no further voting for the evening.  They're back this morning at 10:00 am (though many are already headed up north).

    Right to Life, for their part, looks to be finished playing games.  Lansing insider publication MIRS is reporting that they've begun seriously considering shutting down the House of Representatives.  It would work like this...  There are 69 RTL endorsed members (including handfuls of Dems).  The group would ask each of the sixty-nine to decline to vote yes or no on any legislation whatsoever until SB 1049 received a vote.  Don't go along?  Your endorsement gets yanked.

    Why Dillon continues to obstruct life-saving legislation he claims to support is anyone's guess, and there are a lot of them out there.  74 votes to approve the ban.  Stands to reason there'd be a similar number to approve sentencing guidelines.  

    Not that unanimous approval would prevented the next step in the process.  Because, as the Associated Press reports, there would be a next step:

    Granholm has vetoed partial-birth abortion legislation in the past and does not support the bill as it cleared the Senate because it does not include an exception for a mother's health, spokeswoman Liz Boyd said.

    But there could be efforts to override a veto if it came to that point.

    Granholm vetoed a partial-birth abortion ban in 2003, but hundreds of thousands of voters signed petitions that allowed the bill to become law with only the approval of the House and Senate. Both chambers were controlled by Republicans at the time.

    The GOP doesn't control the House now but frankly, that shouldn't matter.  Whip out the old calculator, tap tap tap, two thirds of 110 is 73.33333... with a lot more threes where those came from.  And while thirty-two Democrats may believe that some people don't count as people at all we'll ignore them and take that .33333 and round it up for a grand total of 74.  Bingo.  There were 74 votes to approve this ban and John Garfield and Glenn Steil, two staunch pro-life Republicans, weren't on the record sheet.   One can assume that if Dillon and the rest of the Democrats stopped playing games the companion bill would pass by a similarly safe margin.

    Of course, we're assuming now that they'd actually attempt to override the veto.  With the Obstructer of the House running the show that's probably a dangerous assumption.  Frankly, at this point I'm a little surprised the man acted at all.

    < Public Schools Beware | Wednesday in the Sphere, May 28 >


    Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit


    Display: Sort:
    Display: Sort:

    Login

    Make a new account

    Username:
    Password:
    Tweet along with RightMichigan by
    following us on Twitter HERE!

    Related Links

    + Associated Press
    + Also by Nick
    create account | faq | search