The current flood insurance program will expire at the end of July of 2012. The Senate has been working on a bill that would reauthorize the program. Unfortunately, Senator Rand Paul decided to add an amendment about abortion to the flood insurance bill. This is causing a delay, right before a national holiday.
A typical homeowners insurance policy excludes coverage for damages due to flooding. If your home is located in a flood zone, then you may be required to purchase flood insurance. Many families get it from the National Flood Insurance Program, (or NFIP). The current insurance program from the NFIP is set to expire at the end of July, 2012. Congress must act before that deadline in order to keep this program, that many families use, viable.
It looked like the Senate’s flood insurance program bill was heading towards being passed. However, Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, decided to add an amendment onto the flood insurance bill that had absolutely nothing to do with flood insurance. The Senators cannot vote to pass the flood insurance bill without also passing the unrelated amendment. This, of course, is resulting in a delay of the passage of the flood insurance bill.
Senator Rand Paul added an amendment that defines “when life begins” to the flood insurance bill. Wording in the amendment includes “Congress hereby declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being”. It also would “ensure equal protection for right to life of each born and preborn human person”. The amendment is called “The Life at Conception Act”.
In plain English, Senator Rand Paul is attempting to force the Senate to pass his amendment about abortion into law by attaching it to a bill that has absolutely nothing to do with abortion, health care, birth control, or “personhood” concepts. The Senate is about to go on a vacation to celebrate the Fourth of July, and the flood insurance bill is set to expire in a few weeks time.
This same underhanded tactic was used earlier this year by Senator Roy Blunt, who is a Republican from Missouri. The Blunt Amendment would have allowed all employers to be allowed to exclude anything at all from the health insurance coverage that is offered to their workers.
Wording in the Blunt Amendment would have allowed employers and health insurers to not provide coverage for, or pay for coverage of “specific items or services” if that coverage was “contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan”.
Obviously, the purpose of the Blunt Amendment was to find a way for employers to get around the birth control mandate. The wording could also be used by insurers or businesses who didn’t want to cover abortion, (or anything else). Senator Roy Blunt attached The Blunt Amendment to a transportation bill that was about funding for highways. This meant that the Senate had to take the time to vote against The Blunt Amendment before they could pass the bill about highway funding, (which is exactly what happened).
This time, Senators cannot vote for the flood insurance bill without also voting for Senator Rand Paul’s “The Life at Conception Act”. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, had this to say:
“After all the work that’s been put on this bill, this is ridiculous that somebody says ‘I’m not going to let this bill go forward unless I have a vote on when life begins.’ I am not going to do that, and I think I speak for the majority of senators”.
Image by Gage Skidmore on Flickr