Not a Pretty Picture: Key Votes for 109th Congress

Check out the key votes in the House and Senate from the 109th Congress. The 109th's two sessions (2005-2006) were dominated by numerous efforts by the Republican leadership to extend previous tax cuts and enact new ones, along with use of the budget resolution and reconciliation processes to pursue their long term goal of drastically cutting social spending. Nearly all of the provisions would benefit uppermost income earners, investors and businesses, while offering relatively little to middle-class and low-income earners.

Programs already slashed include education funding, student loans, health care, child support enforcement, and Medicaid, among many others. Reportedly, when Congress returns after the November 7 election, Republicans plan to push through even deeper cuts to human needs programs.

Other provisions to benefit special interest groups—like the powerful banking and credit card industry—were approved in the misleadingly-named Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. The impact of the resulting changes will fall most heavily on divorced women who are owed past-due child support and on middle-aged and older people filing for bankruptcy in the wake of a catastrophic illness or losing a job. Another special interest bill helped companies who want to fend off employment discrimination or consumer injury lawsuits. The so-called Class Action Fairness Act will force most state court class actions into federal courts—where the Bush-appointed judges abound and companies are more likely to win.

The attacks on women's reproductive rights continued throughout the 109th Congress, but at a lower level than previous years. The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act—more accurately dubbed the Teen Endangerment Act—was passed by the House and Senate, but Democratic leaders blocked a final Senate vote. Amendment efforts to repeal the unconstitutional ban on abortions for military women serving overseas, and their dependents, failed, along with other efforts to repeal the very harmful global gag rule that forbids overseas health clinics to provide or even include abortion in their patient counseling, if they also receive U.S. family planning funds.

The minimum wage increase that is the focus of a number of state ballot initiatives was repeatedly brought up by Democratic advocates in Congress, but failed to gain approval—except in once instance. The House Republican leadership placed the wage increase ($5.15 to $7.25 an hour) in a bill that also repealed the Estate Tax—at a loss to the federal treasury of an estimated $750 million. That "poison pill" stopped the bill dead in its tracks in the Senate.

Several very ugly immigration "reform" bills were adopted in both the House and Senate, but failed to gain final passage. The House version made being an illegal alien an aggravated felony. Failure to gain final passage was probably okay with Republican leaders as they had intended to use illegal immigration as a wedge issue in the Fall election campaigns. Finally, one bright spot was the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which has done so much to prevent, protect and support battered women and their children.

Check out the key votes in the House and Senate.

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