Saint Amy's Amendment Dilemma

Poor Amy Klobuchar -- confounded by her own staff:

An aide to Sen. Amy Klobuchar knew about the controversial abortion language stuck into a bipartisan measure to help victims of human trafficking before her boss voted on it, but failed to say anything, a spokeswoman acknowledged Thursday.

The proposed measure, which had strong backing from members of both parties, stalled in the U.S. Senate last week when Democrats — including Sens. Klobuchar and Al Franken — say they discovered language in the bill that restricts federal funds for abortions and emergency contraception.

Both Klobuchar and Franken voted for the bill in late February on the Judiciary Committee. Franken has said he regrets his vote and believes the Republicans “slipped” in the abortion language, also called a Hyde Amendment. Klobuchar said she didn’t know the language was in the bill when she voted for it.

As always, you have to pass the bill to find out what's in it. A few observations:

• This is a very old practice in Washington and the Democrats and Republicans have done it for years. The Hyde Amendment has been around for a very long time. Henry Hyde, an Illinois congressman who was a long-time pro-life champion, first added it to legislation in 1976. Democrats have been fighting to get rid of it ever since, because taxpayer funded abortions are hugely important to certain parts of the Democratic Party's coalition. Including, it would appear, Amy Klobuchar.
• If you were around during the Reagan era, you probably remember the Boland Amendment. This was the brainchild of Edward Boland, a backbencher Democrat from Massachusetts who was a pal of Tip O'Neill, the legendary Boston pol who was Speaker of the House during the 1980s. The Boland Amendment barred the president from providing assistance to the Contras, who were fighting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. The Democrats regularly added it to budget bills that gave President Reagan a choice -- either sign the bill and allow your hands to be tied, or veto it and shut the government down. The Boland Amendment was treated as holy writ, spoken of in reverent tone, When Reagan's team tried to bypass this poison pill, it led to the Iran-Contra scandal. You would hear Democrats say, "why, that monster Reagan, he's violating the Boland Amendment!"
• Klobuchar is a few years older than I am and has made politics her life, so she's old enough to know all this.

While the "staffer" hasn't been officially thrown under the bus, you can hear the engine revving in the background:

“A staff member who reviewed the reintroduced bill had seen the Hyde provision in the bill but did not inform the senator. The senator was not aware that the provision was included until last Monday,” e-mailed Klobuchar’s spokeswoman Julia Krahe. “The senator takes responsibility for the work of her office and missing the provision and she is focused on moving forward to find a way to fix the bill and protect victims of trafficking.”

Klobuchar has been able to skate on a lot of topics for years because everyone "likes" her. She's particularly embarrassed on this one because she is a sponsor of the bill, so claiming ignorance seems a stretch. As the Star Tribune article mentions, she declined an interview request. We should keep asking the questions anyway.