What the senator claimed was a difficult decision was just a case of backroom deals and abandoned principles.
When the Republican-controlled Senate passed the disastrous megabill on Tuesday, the deciding vote came from Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The Alaskan lawmaker, who has long claimed to be a moderate, got over the finish line the bill for Donald Trump’s priorities, which would send billions of dollars to ICE, extend tax cuts for the wealthy, kick large abortion providers out of the Medicaid program, and knock millions of low-income people off their health insurance.
Murkowski cast this vote just a week after she suggested in a podcast interview that she’d consider becoming an independent and caucusing with Senate Democrats. She cast this vote, which could shutter nearly 200 Planned Parenthood clinics, after repeatedly painting herself as “pro choice.” She cast this vote after Planned Parenthood called the bill a “backdoor abortion ban” and said it could eliminate one in four abortion providers nationwide.
As Bolts Magazine Editor-in-Chief Daniel Nichanian noted after the vote: “The Senate’s small-state ultra-bias is never more maddening than when one senator uses it to get benefits for her 740,000 constituents while openly acknowledging the bill she’s supporting will harm the nation’s 339 million other residents.”
I’d like to say that Alaska will vote her out but Alaska isn’t known for being progressive or sane. People come here to hoard broken cars & ripped tarps in peace.
We’re at the point that I’m not sure if this is an onion.
*nibble nibble*
Murkowski was literally primaried by a further right nut job, ran in the general as a write in, won and rejoined the Republicans. The only thing that will stop Alaskans electing her is death or retirement.