Thursday, September 29, 2016

Look they can be Bi-Partisan


The Senate voted 97-1 and the House 348-77 to overide Obama's veto of the Sue Saudi Arabia bill.  In the Senate only Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada sided with the White House by casting the lone vote against override in the upper chamber.

The White House blasted the vote, with spokesman Josh Earnest saying, “this is the single most embarrassing thing the United States Senate has done possibly since 1983,” calling it “an abdication” of its responsibility. In 1983, the Senate overrode President Ronald Reagan’s veto of an Oregon lands transfer bill 95-0. 

I found that 1983 reference curious, and when I read about it I found it odder still.  Here is a link to a newspaper article at the time. Basically in 1941 a survey mis-designated 3.1 acres of government land as private.  Based on that survey the original owner who had settled it under the Homestead Act sold it off and in 1983 parcels of it were owned by six elderly couples, a telephone company, and a railroad right of way.  The government identified the error in 1957 but never filed its claim with land and title officials. Congress passed a bill giving the land to its private owners... Reagan vetoed it, and Congress overrode the veto. Our White House administration thinks THAT was the most embarrassing thing the Senate has done since 1983? Wow!

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