Present and Accounted For
ArchPundit
At this point in a campaign cynicism sets in for me and I pretty much take the charges flying around as ‘the game’. But Eric Zorn offers a powerful counterpoint to the claims that Obama has avoided votes on abortion.
“To provide cover for other Democrats who were shaky on the issue in an effort to convince them not to vote `yes,'” Sutherland said. “The idea is to recruit a group to vote `present’ that includes legislators who are clearly right with the issue.”
Sutherland said this tactic makes the “present” vote look less like a hedge or a cop-out and more like a constitutional concern or other high-minded qualm.
She pointed to the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 2001, a bill requiring that an adult family member be notified 48 hours in advance when a minor seeks an abortion.
The complaint seems to me to be the equivalent of complaining about fake committees created to kill bills. Being more familiar with the House, bills problematic for certain blocks of Members are sent to an ad hoc committee by Rules. The ad hoc committee never meets, the bill dies. If one was to complain that the chair never even chaired the meeting, you would laugh them out of the room because Da Speaker told them not to meet–well actually Steve Brown told them not to meet, but you know.
UPDATE: I just read the Hotline and I did not take the Title from them. Really! In fact, I think I had this up first.