Senate Votes to Call for Justice Department to Investigate Coconut Road Earmark

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Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) amendment just passed by a margin of 63 to 29. Virtually all Senate Democrats supported the measure, helped by a good number of Republicans.

The amendment requires a review by the Department of Justice into the allegations of impropriety regarding Rep. Don Young’s (R-AK) Coconut Road earmark and an investigation into whether the change broke the law.

Immediately after the vote, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who voted against the amendment, called the vote an “amazing precedent” set to invite the “Justice Department to investigate a House rules violation.”

The Senate is now moving on to Coburn’s solution — a joint House-Senate investigation. Sen. Boxer declared that such an investigation would “bring the whole bill down” because of Constitutional objections by Democrats in both the House and the Senate.

Update: Here’s the roll call for that.

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