Politico: where Republican complaints of partisanship are actual news

Written by Matt Gertz

Published

This morning, Politico published a story, the premise of which appears to be that Republican senators are mad at Al Franken for having proposed an amendment - which passed two months ago - banning federal contracts from being awarded to companies who require their employees to use their firms arbitration process - rather than the courts - for workplace discrimination claims. Why was this article published? I have no idea.

A Franken press release sent out after the amendment passed stated that Franken had been “inspired” to offer the amendment by the story of Jamie Leigh Jones, “a 19-yr-old employee of defense contractor KBR (formerly a Halliburton subsidiary) stationed in Iraq who was gang raped by her co-workers and imprisoned in a shipping container when she tried to report the crime” who subsequently “learned a fine-print clause in her KBR contract banned her from taking her case to court, instead forcing her into an ”arbitration" process that would be run by KBR itself."

According to the Politico article, the amendment has - horror of horrors! - “spawned attacks like the satirical website RepublicansforRape.org.” And so, the Republican senators in the article are complaining that Franken has been excessively partisan, demanding that he come out and say that opponents of his amendment are not effectively pro-rape, and claiming that until that happens, Franken's ability to work with Republicans in the future will be undermined.

Why has the Politico decided to let Republicans like John Cornyn - the head of the Republican National Senate Committee, i.e., the chief Republican partisan in the Senate - decide what constitutes excessive partisanship? No idea.

Does the Politico think it's somewhat unusual for Senators to be criticized for the votes they cast, and respond by complaining? Sure looks like it.

Why is the article running now, two months after Franken's amendment passed? Dunno.

But I'm sure it has nothing to do with this blog post, in which a different Politico reporter complains that Franken won't talk to him in the halls.