Congress Working on Dead End Legislation

Both houses of Congress wasted time working on legislation that will not become law. In each case there is clearly a political motivation.

First, the Senate spent two days and finally passed the Stem Cell Research Bill which will become the first bill vetoed by President Bush. The Dems are salivating at the prospect of a presidential veto in order to try and make a campaign issue out of it this fall. Frankly, I don't think there is a large percentage of the U.S. voters that care either way about this issue.

The Dem members of both houses will make a big show the day the bill is vetoed, and will probably have a few GOP members like Arlen Specter joining in, but the net effect after a few days will be zip.

Secondly, the House denied passage of the Gay Marriage Amendment which had no chance of going anywhere because of the previous rejection by the Senate. This was the GOP's effort to get Dems on the record voting one way or the other so they could use those votes in November. There's clearly more passion about this issue than there is on stem cells, so the GOP may be able to gain a slight advantage by forcing the vote.

Your tax dollars at work.