Senators Shelby and Sessions to vote against omnibus spending bill - shows Republican 'betrayal
By Howard Koplowitz | hkoplowitz@al.com
Washington, D.C.
U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., is planning on voting against the omnibus spending bill agreed to by legislative leaders on Wednesday, despite language he got into the legislation that would protect some 850 jobs in Decatur and to increase fishermen's access to red snapper on the Alabama coast.
Shelby said while there are some aspects to the bill that he likes, such as continued reliance on a Russian-made rocket engine used by a Decatur joint venture that sends the country's national security satellites into orbit and the red snapper provisions, he intends to vote against the omnibus because it doesn't include measures like blocking the president's Syrian refugee resettlement plan or defunding Planned Parenthood.
"While I support the inclusion of several conservative priorities and key provisions critical to Alabama in this year's omnibus bill, I oppose the overall bill because it gives a blank check to President Obama to continue his dangerous Syrian refugee resettlement plan. During this increasingly uncertain time in our nation, we simply cannot allow the President – who is more focused on gun control and climate change than national security – to unilaterally determine who can enter our country," Shelby said in a statement. "This omnibus bill puts the United States on a path towards admitting an unknown number of potentially dangerous migrants who we cannot properly vet. President Obama's lack of strategy on how to combat ISIS coupled with his failure to secure our borders underscores the critical need for Congress to stop him in his tracks. Unfortunately, this bill fails to halt the President's reckless proposals and prioritize the safety of the American people."
Shelby, who is running for re-election in 2016, faced criticism by one of his Republican primary opponents, retired Marine Capt. Jonathan McConnell, who accused Alabama's senior senator of having it both ways.
"For 37 years, Richard Shelby has tried to have it both ways, by being a Democrat when it's expedient and by being a Republican when it's expedient. That's exactly what he's doing here," McConnell said in a statement. "I reject the premise that we need to rely on Russia to give us jobs. Maybe Obama and Shelby are ready to let Vladimir Putin's Russia be the world's leader, but I am not."
Shelby's led a successful fight for the Russian engine provision over the protests of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who tweeted that the measure was "the height of hypocrisy."
Alabama's senior senator has suggested that McCain's criticism is disingenuousbecause there is no current American alternative to the Russian engine and a delay in getting spy satellites into spacewould compromise national security.
The United States will continue to – and saving some 850 Alabama jobs in the process – after language introduced by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., was included in the omnibus spending bill being considered by Congress this week.
Jeff Sessions, Alabama's junior Republican senator, is also planning to vote "no" on the omnibus. Sessions, the senate's loudest voice on immigration, cited the continuation of the Syrian refugee resettlement program, funding sanctuary cities and not curtailing visas for foreign workers in explaining why he will vote against the bill.
Sessions also criticized fellow Republicans for not fighting hard enough to get those provisions into the omnibus, saying the Republicans' failure amounted to a "betrayal" of the voters who elected them into office.
"There is a reason that GOP voters are in open rebellion. They have come to believe that their party's elites are not only uninterested in defending their interests but – as with this legislation, and fast-tracking the president's international trade pact – openly hostile to them," he said in a statement. "This legislation represents a further disenfranchisement of the American voter."