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Student-loan bill passes after slowdown over Libby, Guantanamo |
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By Elana Schor
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Posted: 07/20/07 04:33 PM [ET] |
The Senate approved its student-loan reconciliation bill early Friday after an unusually rancorous volley of politically charged amendments the previous evening.
The reconciliation package that passed, 78-18, would increase the maximum Pell Grant and provide other student benefits while cutting subsidies to student-loan companies by more than $17 billion. But before the measure sailed through, both parties traded fire on the floor.
First, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) fell short in his bid to block funding for reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, which the GOP views as a backdoor attempt to curb conservative talk radio. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) then offered a nonbinding amendment aimed at putting the Senate on record against the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to U.S. shores.
McConnell’s amendment said that suspected terrorists held at the controversial facility “should not be released into American society, nor should they be transferred stateside into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods.” Only three senators —Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) — voted against McConnell’s phrasing, which the GOP leader noted did not rule out closing the Guantanamo prison.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) followed with an amendment that would ensure that the secret ballot remains the sole means to conduct union elections, undercutting Democratic attempts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which remains a major priority of labor groups.
DeMint’s amendment fell short, 42-54, and soon afterward, Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) offered a nonbinding amendment to put the Senate on record opposing a pardon for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
President Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence earlier this month, incensing Democrats and disappointing some conservative heavyweights who had sought a full pardon for Cheney’s onetime right-hand man. Salazar’s language noted that Bush has not ruled out a future pardon for Libby, who was found guilty of obstructing investigators looking into the administration’s leaks of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity.
“It would be in the best interest of this institution and the American people to stop this and not to go forward with these kinds of amendments,” Salazar said on the floor. “Regrettably, if you are going to shoot this way, we have to shoot that way.”
That amendment also failed, 47-49, and was promptly vitiated and removed from the Congressional Record by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), manager of the student-loan bill that was briefly derailed, voted against the anti-pardon language, as did Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Byrd.
Four Republicans voted alongside most Democrats in disapproval of any Libby pardon: Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Coleman.
Bingaman opposed the pardon amendment in an effort to curtail the one-upmanship that was delaying a vote on the reconciliation bill, said his spokeswoman, Jude McCartin.
“He wanted to get to final passage of this legislation, which is extremely important to New Mexico, and he didn’t want the legislation to be held up by amendments that were blocking final passage,” McCartin said.
After the Salazar vote, McConnell released an amendment “deploring” former President Bill Clinton’s use of the commander-in-chief’s clemency power.
McConnell listed a series of Clinton pardons that he described as going “to terrorists, family members, donors, and individuals represented by family members, to public officials of his own political party, and to officials who violated laws protecting United States intelligence.” The amendment was never voted on.
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