What the heck just happened with the trafficking bill? We won, that’s what happened.
On January 13, Republican Senator John Cornyn introduced the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015, legislation that would “create a federal fund for victims’ services and law enforcement tools financed by fines levied on convicted traffickers,” as U.S. News & World Report succinctly described it.
While victims of sex trafficking have been widely promoted as benefactors of this bill, victims of labor trafficking are also protected, one of a couple of important points.
The bill was sailing toward smooth bipartisan passage until March 17, when Democrats suddenly claimed to have discovered hidden anti-abortion language in the same bill many of them (including top Dem dogs Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer) had already approved in committee.
Within a day that story fell apart.
So, what we really had here was either Minority Leader Harry Reid attempting to reassert his manhood into a process that was running way too efficiently under Republican tutelage, or pro-abortion groups laying down the law.
What might have stirred the wrath of pro-abortion groups?
The Trafficking Act uses the same anti-abortion language as the 39-yr-0ld Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal funds from paying for abortions except in the cases of rape/incest. This verbiage was thought to be noncontroversial, since Hyde has been approved annually on a bipartisan basis for decades.
And therein lies the rub. The Hyde Amendment isn’t permanent law. Congress must sanction it each year.
But the Trafficking Act has a duration of five years, until 2019, which is why the Hyde language had to be added to it.
Pro-aborts saw this as an expansion of Hyde, a precedent.
Democrats additionally accused Republicans of expanding on Hyde by applying it in this bill to funds collected in part from private sources – convicted traffickers – when Hyde only applies to federal funds.
This is ludicrous, of course, because most federal funds are collected from private sources – taxes, user fees, premiums, etc. Once the government has our money it becomes part of the federal pool.
Which brings us to how a “compromise” was reached that allowed Democrats to save face. Read this quote from Politico carefully:
The strain of the episode took a toll on Democrats….
It took six weeks, but Democratic leaders ended up cutting a face-saving deal Tuesday….
The restitution fund now has two revenue streams, one from traffickers and another from the federal government’s general fund. The money from traffickers can’t be used for medical procedures, while the general fund money is subject to Hyde Amendment restrictions on abortion, like all other federal spending.
In other words, none of the Trafficking Act funds can be used for abortion. But don’t take my word for it. From Jezebel:
In other words, then, none of the money can legally be used for abortion care. That really doesn’t look like a compromise.
From Politico:
“I don’t know that there’s much difference from what was proposed earlier,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) said….
There’s not.
Even NARAL’s gobbledygook attempt to claim victory still admitted defeat:
A compromise was reportedly reached to deny expansion of the unjust Hyde amendment to a private fund for the first time….
While this is a stunning loss that should serve as a strong lesson to the anti-choice zealots who repeatedly attach unjust abortion regulations to any legislation concerning women’s health, today’s tragic loss is for human and sex trafficking victims - women and girls - who will regrettably be denied full reproductive health care access as a result of today’s compromise.
In other words, we won.
One final point. Had there been no Hyde Amendment in the Trafficking Act, abortion funding would have been available to labor trafficking victims as well as sex trafficking victims, and for all five years – the duration of the Act.
So, by no means would abortion funding have been limited to pregnant victims of sex trafficking. It would have been available to trafficked victims where there was no sex crime involved at all, or to women who were subsequently in consensual relationships, perhaps four years down the road but still part of the program, such as in job training.
That’s the real reason pro-aborts wanted this amendment gone. The Act would have otherwise expanded federal funding of abortion.
Kudos to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for standing firm, going so far as to hold up the nomination of Loretta Lynch for Attorney General. Kudos also to Senator Cornyn.
[HT: Chicken Man]

Well done. Something done correctly. For once.
I’m truly impressed. The Republicans had a chance to cave in on something and they didn’t. Let’s hope this is the start of a trend.
I hope the trade-off – not just a vote on Lynch, but her confirmation – doesn’t come back to bite anyone on a future pro-life issue. Still, I’m relieved if it’s correct that taxpayer funds for trafficking survivors will be kept out of the hands of abortion providers.
Here, Here!
CityOfAngels, different spelling on “here” ;)
Once the government has our money it becomes part of the federal pool.
:(
Gimme back my Social Security contributions.
Doug says:
Gimme back my Social Security contributions.
Your “contributions” have already been spent, Dude. There is no savings account with your name on it. Just a promise that everybody else’s kids and grandkids will pay you in the future. Let’s hope that they agree to the deal.
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As to the Trafficking Bill…. It is disturbing that the Abortion Industry has so much power that they could hold up passage of a bill to aid women and victims of trafficking for six weeks, as well as the vote for the new Attorney General.
It is very good that the Abortion Industry was not able to a new funding stream from taxpayers’ money designated to help trafficking victims and their children.
I hope the Democrats realize that they need to untether the Abortion Industry from around their necks. Abortion is an albatross.
Del: Your “contributions” have already been spent, Dude. There is no savings account with your name on it. Just a promise that everybody else’s kids and grandkids will pay you in the future. Let’s hope that they agree to the deal.
Exactly – Congress broke into the Social Security Trust Fund and took the money for the General Fund. So, we had this federal program and we were supposed to “trust” Congress to leave it alone and let it be the way it was set up? What could go wrong? :P
I hope the Democrats realize that they need to untether the Abortion Industry from around their necks. Abortion is an albatross.
To some degree, yes, but there will always be this or that issue that polarizes at least some segment of the population.
Most Republican pols don’t want abortion to go away – it gives them a built-in section of almost 100% committed voters, in a time when the demographics are going hard against them – witness the changing racial makeup of America and the difference between the older and younger generations (here, regardless of race) on homosexual rights.
I am not sure where you are going with this, Doug.
I don’t care about Democrats or Republicans. If the Democrats want to steal the pro-life issue away from Republicans, that would be great. We don’t need a pro-abortion party in this country.
What this current Trafficking bill illustrates is that the Abortion Industry owns the Democrats, and can twist the Dems to support Big Abortion’s agenda — even with something as bipartisan as rescuing trafficking victims, which enjoys popular support among all voters.
The Abortion Industry is a special interest that has lost the Democrats many seats in Congress, and it could lose them the White House as well.
Americans do not want to pay for abortions, even as we are willing to lavish great care and help on the victims of sex crimes. Abortion has become an albatross around the Democrats’ necks.
Is it possible that the Democratic Party politicians are starting to realize this? Are they beginning to see that Hillary and Wasserman-Schultz have lost their curb appeal? Will they kick them to curb, to make room once again for some pro-life voices in their ranks?
It’s going to take a few decades for the Democrats to recover from the damage of their rotten plank of pro-abortion.
Hey Ellen,
Just a point of clarification. It is mistaken to think there was a “trade off” with respect to Loretta Lynch. It was clear enough, before the flap over the trafficking bill erupted, that Lynch was going to be confirmed. Once the trafficking bill was resolved, most if not all senators voted the same way on Lynch as they would have voted if there had been no trafficking flap.
The only relationship between the two matters was that McConnell said he would not turn to the Lynch nomination until the trafficking bill was finished, and he stuck to that despite rants about Republican racism, back of the bus, etc., etc.
Hope this helps!
Yes, Jill…. The Lynch confirmation was a done deal, with Democrats and Republicans both glad to be rid of Eric Holder.
The Senate Democrats were threatening the filibuster the Trafficking bill until it expanded abortion. Republicans did not have enough votes to break a filibuster. So the typical strategy is to schedule something that the Democrats really want behind the filibuster — force the Dems to back down on the Trafficking filibuster so then could have their vote on Lynch.
The Dems wasted time, trying to tar Republicans with “hating women” and such, but it didn’t stick and the Republican Senate leadership did not back down.
The Republicans offered the Dems a face-saving way out of their own pit: A re-structured Trafficking proposal that has the same result as before. Dems could claim that they “fixed” it.
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The abortion industry knows now that their influence over the Democrats is not enough to save them, and that they are a drag on the Democrats’ success. Meanwhile, pro-life Republicans are finally finding their voices.
I think the Democrats and the pro-borts overplayed their hand on the Trafficking bill. They should have let it pass quietly. They have revealed their political weakness.
Looking ahead to the 20-week ban, and to defunding Planned Parenthood. Who will carry more clout in Washington — the Pro-Life Movement, or the Abortion Industry? The “intensity gap” is going to be an important difference.
I am not sure where you are going with this, Doug.
Del, I was just commenting on things generally. “The Abortion Industry” – I think you’re jacking it up quite a bit, i.e. practically a conspiracy theory. If you say the Democrats have lost many seats in Congress due to it, did they then gain many seats in the past, due to it?
As for Hillary, I’ve got a joke about her…
The 2016 election:
Vote for Monica, because she got the job done when Hillary couldn’t.