The most recent controversy in the U.S. Congress was over funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
The U.S. House of Representatives had attached amendments to the bill, HR240, to deny funds for President Obama’s deferred deportation for up to 5 million illegal aliens, which would have granted them de-facto amnesty.
The bill was then sent to the U.S. Senate. It failed to do anything with it and sent it back to the U.S. House. Speaker John Boehner, in spite of his famous statement that he would fight deferred deportation funding “tooth and nail,” also “punted” and allowed a vote on the funding bill without those amendments — what Democrats wanted — a “clean” bill.
Both of Maine’s U.S. representatives, Chellie Pingree (1st District) and Bruce Poliquin (2nd District) voted for the stripped down, “clean” bill (HR240 Roll call vote 109, March 3).
Uber-liberal Pingree’s vote was expected, but Poliquin voted with the Democrats and 74 other Republicans for the bill, and against his assertions during the campaign that he was against amnesty. His website action items included: “Promote legal immigration; discourage illegal entry; secure our borders; ensure no unfair advantage for illegal immigrants.”
No amnesty, period.
So now, safely elected, Poliquin is showing his true colors, emphasizing “bipartisanship” (“Poliquin touts his bipartisanship in chamber dinner,” Sun Journal, March 8). Observing his post-election scampering into Speaker Boehner’s “go along to get along” orbit, what I see is capitulation, rather than principle; hypocrisy, rather than candor.
Robert Casimiro, Bridgton
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