Chuck Schumer moves to block pro-Israel bill to protest shutdown
by Susan Ferrechio
| January 07, 2019 03:23 PM
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Senate Democratic leaders are mounting an effort to block a pro-Israel bill on Tuesday in order to protest the ongoing partial government shutdown, which is now in its third week.
The Senate late Tuesday will hold a procedural vote on a bill that supports Israel by allowing state and local governments to divest from entities that boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank.
The provision is part of legislation numbered “S.1†that was to be the very first bill senators debate in the 116th Congress. In addition to the BDS language, it includes several Middle East security provisions such as new authorities for sanctioning Bashar Assad's regime in Syria and reauthorization of security assistance to Israel.
But Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., a top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, will vote Tuesday against moving to debate the BDS bill, even though they cosponsored the bill when was introduced in 2017.
Democrats say said their “no†votes are a response to the current partial government shutdown. They instead want Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to take up spending legislation passed by the House last week that would reopen nine agencies and departments that have been closed since Dec. 23.
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