Updated: 2:20 P.M. EST
WASHINGTON — Democrats rejected an offer by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Thursday to hold a Senate vote to strip out anti-abortion language from a stalled bill to combat human trafficking.
“The way to handle the issue is very simple: just take it out of the the bill,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, upon objecting.
The Kentucky Republican’s offer was an attempt to break the impasse amidst Democratic objections to the anti-abortion language, which they say Republicans snuck into the bill without telling them. If Democrats had gone along, the likely scenario was that the Republican-led chamber would have voted to keep the abortion provision.
A visibly frustrated McConnell accused Democrats of “trying to kill this important bill because of a provision they claimed somehow they missed after it being in there for two months.”
“They now suddenly find it offensive,” he said.
To expedite the vote, McConnell had sought a “unanimous consent” agreement, which means any one senator could block it.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) scoffed at the notion that Democrats didn’t know about the provision when they voted unanimously last month to approve the legislation in the Judiciary Committee. He said there were staff-level discussions about the provision, which would expand restrictions on federal funding for abortion as it pertains to a new stream of revenues for victims of trafficking.
“This is not a surprise,” he said.
The underlying bill is overwhelmingly bipartisan.
