Democratic Splits Give GOP Small Victories in Senate
Republicans lost the war but won a few battles on the Senate floor on Tuesday night.
Democrats were able to move their $3.5 trillion budget resolution forward early Wednesday on a 50-49 vote.
However, the victory followed several hours of Republican senators offering amendments to the bill. Many were rejected, but some passed when moderate Democrats joined with their GOP colleagues, Fox News reported.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas managed to eke out a win with an amendment banning the use of federal funds to support the teaching of critical race theory.
“Today some want to replace our founding principles with critical race theory, want to teach our children America is not a good nation but a racist nation,” Cotton said. “Those teachings are wrong, and our tax dollars should not support them.”
BREAKING: The Senate has voted 50-49 to pass @SenTomCotton‘s amendment to prohibit federal funds from being used to promote critical race theory in K-12 schools.
The fight against CRT has gone national—and Sen. Cotton is leading the way.pic.twitter.com/6MpA8hDhpb
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) August 11, 2021
Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama won unanimous support for an amendment reducing or eliminating the federal funding of communities that slash their police budgets.
“Local leaders across the country have decided the woke thing to do is to cancel their city’s police force,” Tuberville said, according to AL.com.
“My amendment is pretty simple. If your city council wants to defund their police, don’t expect the federal government to make up the difference. The American taxpayers in Alabama have to pick up the tab for local leaders in Oregon and Minnesota who value the woke ‘defund the police’ movement over their own community safety,” he said.
“This is a gift,” Cory Booker says in an animated speech praising Tommy Tuberville’s non-binding amendment to punish localities that defund the police.
“I am sure I will see no political ads attacking anybody here over defund the police.”
It passed 99-0, all Dems voted for it. pic.twitter.com/GUqAfcSlxH
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) August 11, 2021
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey tried to paint the amendment’s passage as proof that Democrats do not want to defund the police.
“I am so excited. This is perhaps the highlight of this long and painful and torturous night. This is a gift,” he said.
“If it wasn’t complete abdication of Senate procedures and esteem, I would walk over there and hug my colleague from Alabama,” Booker added.
“There’s some people who have said that there are members of this deliberative body that want to defund the police, to my horror. And now, this senator has given us the gift of finally, once and for all, we can put to bed this scurrilous accusation.”
Democratic defections led to the adoption of an amendment from Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota to block the Environmental Protection Agency from banning fracking and one from Republican Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas to prohibit the Department of Agriculture from cutting federal funding to fossil fuel plants.
Four Democrats also voted for an amendment introduced by Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee to bolster resources to deport criminal illegal aliens.
An amendment from Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma to oppose the federal funding of abortion passed when Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia jumped ship and joined the 49 Republicans.
An amendment from Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy failed even with Manchin’s support because Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine opposed it.
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