Divisive governance, which has characterized the US legislature for several years, continues to obstruct any constructive legislation for much-needed Zika research/prevention funding.
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“For months, [the Democrats have] asked the Republicans who control the Senate to let us act while more and more American travelers are back in the USA after contracting the Zika virus”.
Enraged over the IRS’ aggressive inquiries into tea party groups seeking tax exemptions, conservatives want the House to vote on whether Koskinen should be removed from office.
Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a $1.1 billion Zika funding measure for the third time, a move that is expected to trigger new negotiations to author a bipartisan bill aimed at combating the mosquito-transmitted virus that is spreading in Florida. The Republican-controlled House rejected that measure, and instead passed a bill of its own which added in a bunch of controversial ways to pay for the spending, taking money from Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.
“Give us an up-or-down vote, straight, on Zika”, Biden, a former Democratic senator from DE, said at an event on Capitol Hill with fellow Democrats from the Senate and House of Representatives.
Are you confused, yet? But CDC director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said the agency will run out of money month for Zika efforts unless Congress steps up to the plate.
“It’s hard to explain why, despite their own calls for funding, Senate Democrats chose to block a bill that would keep pregnant women and babies safer from Zika”, he said on the Senate floor before reintroducing the previously blocked measure.
“Republicans were more interested in attacking Planned Parenthood and flying the Confederate flag – can’t make this stuff up, that’s really the truth – than protecting women and babies from this terrible virus”, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said. She says many of those members seem to be more concerned with their election campaigns than with passing a budget by October 1. “And how did something like this, a public health crisis, become a political tool to be played with back and forth?”
A motion to bring the legislation up for a vote failed 52-46, 8 votes shy of the 60 needed to override the filibuster.
As senators traded barbs about whose fault it was, Florida health officials said they’d found seven more home-grown cases of Zika, six of them part of an outbreak in Miami Beach.
“Let’s stop this monkey business”, Nelson said, on the Senate floor.
At a news conference Wednesday, South Florida Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Frederica Wilson were among those appearing with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. McConnell told reporters talks were underway on both a CR and a $1.1 billion funding package to combat the Zika virus.
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Republican leaders hope to resolve that and other issues and send Congress home by September’s end so lawmakers can campaign.
