So, once upon a time the House of Representatives took up the “Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act.” Come, I will conceal nothing from you: it is a bill designed to reduce some of the – well deserved – anger felt towards the national parties by ending a particular subsidy. To wit: the bill takes about 126 million dollars (over ten years) that would normally be given to Republican/Democratic party conventions and instead assigns the money to pediatric disease research. The DNC & RNC aren’t happy about this, of course – but let’s face it: there’s a reason why this sailed through Congress and the President will be happy to sign the bill into law next week. All in all, a moment of rare sensible behavior from our politicians…
Well. Everybody who isn’t a liberal Democrat, of course. The Nay votes on this have a certain basic familiarity about them: lots and lots and lots of progressive names on that. I was a little surprised about that, actually, given that the Senate version passed unanimously by voice vote; but then I remembered that even the safest Senator isn’t as safe as, say, a Nancy Pelosi or a Henry Waxman. Still. You’d think that they wouldn’t snub sick kids like this: I mean, it was obviously going to pass anyway, so why not do the right thing for a change and proclaim to the world that money was better spent on pediatric research than on party supplies? Continue reading So why *did* the Democratic House leadership vote against pediatric research?