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Legislative Update for September 21, 2012

By September 21, 2012Legislative Updates
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This week is the last full week Congress will meet before the November elections.

The House:

The House passed a resolution of disapproval regarding the Obama Administration’s illegal waiver of welfare-to-work requirements. The welfare-to-work requirement was includedas part of the landmark 1996 Welfare Reform legislation that passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton.With the stroke of a pen, the Obama Administration undermined Congress and the law.American families should not be trapped in a cycle of poverty.At a time when our deficit is ballooning, waiving work requirements will make more Americans dependent on the federal government.

The Senate:

Our Project 535 volunteers lobbied over 30 offices in the Senate on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) treaty this past Wednesday.All day, our volunteers were told this treaty would not be brought to the floor until after the November elections.

Despite Hill assurances to the contrary, on Thursday, in an underhanded maneuver, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) tried to bring the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to the Senate floor for a vote under a unanimous consent agreement.If Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) had not been on the floor to object, they would have succeeded with their antics.

In another pre-recess weekend vote, the Senate passed H.J. Res. 117, the Continuing Resolution to fund the government through March 27, 2013.