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Coburn Holds Up Court Security Measure To Make A Point
By Terry Kivlan
Congress Daily
April 19, 2007
Raising Democratic hackles, conservative anti-deficit crusader Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Wednesday continued to hold up passage of a seemingly noncontroversial bill that would authorize $179 million over the next four years to bolster security in the nation's courthouses.
Coburn strongly defended his move, reminding colleagues that he warned them in a letter earlier this year of his intent to place holds on bills that violated his fiscal responsibility criteria, including providing offsets for new spending, such as the $179 million.
"It is a simple request. It's easy to find an offset," said Coburn in a floor speech after the Senate voted 93-3 to invoke cloture and open the debate on the Court Security Improvements Act of 2007.
The senator called the bill a "good piece of legislation" and said he had no intention of filibustering it. But he argued that today's judges were not "nearly has threatened" as this country's children in an era of an ever increasing multi-trillion-dollar national debt. "Every child born in this country has a birth tax on their head," said Coburn, estimating the current amount of the levy at $453,000 per capita.
Coburn said the purpose of his strategy of placing holds on what he viewed as fiscally irresponsible bills was to increase public awareness that Congress was not doing its job as steward of the taxpayer's money. "We are borrowing away the future of our children," he declared.
To underline the seriousness of his quest, he forced a vote on a resolution asserting that the Senate had a "moral obligation to offset the cost of new government programs . . . to avoid adding to the national debt." On a Democratic motion, the Senate voted 59-38, mostly along party lines, to table the measure.
About $20 million of the funding in the courthouse security bill would go to U.S. marshals assigned to protecting judges. The bill would also authorize the removal of some personal information -- such as home addresses and the names of family members -- from the financial disclosure forms of judges and extend the ban on firearms in federal courthouses to all dangerous weapons.
Coburn's insistence on delaying approval of the bill drew angry rebukes from Democrats, who pointed out that the bill had been reported out of the Judiciary Committee with unanimous bipartisan support. "Let's stop these stalling tactics on legislation as important as this," said Senate Majority Whip Durbin. "It's unfair."
As evidence of the need for the security upgrade, Leahy cited escalating rhetorical attacks on judges. "One TV evangelist pronounced federal judges the worst threat this country had faced in 400 years . . . ," said Leahy.
Majority Leader Reid announced he had scheduled a cloture vote Friday to proceed to a vote on the bill, and vowed to finish action on the measure even if it meant keeping the Senate in session over the weekend. "Our judges, marshals and U.S. attorneys need this," Reid said.
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