An interesting day in Congress today as the House defeats two Libya-related measures, and three Arizona Representatives are among those whose votes will gather attention.
First, Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-CD7) and Ed Pastor - Arizona's two Democratic Congressmen (the third, Gabrielle Giffords, is still rehabbing) - (D-CD4) voted with the majority in refusing to authorize the U.S. to participate in the NATO operation that has been proceeding in Libya since March. All the Arizona Republicans voted against and the House vote was 123-295 against the resolution. (The overall split among Democrats was 115-70, and the GOP split was 8-225.) The Senate is expected to pass the authorization.
The second vote was one pushed by Speaker of the House John Boehner, to cut off funding for the ongoing operations there. It failed 180-238, and the only member of the Arizona delegation to vote for cutting off funding was Rep. David Schweikert (R-CD5). Arizona's other four Republicans voted with a majority of the Democrats in not cutting the funding.
The only Representative to issue a statement (so far) is Rep. Jeff Flake (R-CD6), who voted against both measures: "“The President still has not made clear what national security objectives are being met by U.S. participation in the NATO mission or how we can justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fund our efforts there. The time for debate over whether to authorize U.S. armed forces to engage in Libya was months ago, before the U.S. entered into the NATO operation."
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