Last Friday, I wrote about how the Democrats were putting abortion before helping victims of human trafficking. The Democrats incredible defense was that they had not read the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act to find the language inserted by the GOP relating to abortion. Now, [mc_name name=’Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’K000367′ ], a Democrat from Minnesota and the bill’s leading Democratic sponsor, admits that it was her staff, not the Republicans, who should be blamed for the scuttling of the bill. Per the Daily Caller;

Klobuchar admitted Tuesday one of her staffers did see the language weeks ago.

The staffer “had seen the language,” but “did not inform the senator,” Julia Krahe, a spokesperson for Klobuchar, told The Associated Press. It’s unclear whether the staffer told any outside groups or other staffers.

“The senator takes responsibility for the work of her office and missing the provision and she is focused on moving forward to find a way to fix the bill and protect victims of trafficking,” the spokesperson added.

The fight against human trafficking receives little attention anyways in the media, but to the extent that it does receive coverage, don’t expect to hear much about this admission from any of the major networks or papers. Like the Daily Caller notes, what still seems strange to me though, is why a staffer would notice language about a hot button issue like abortion and not tell her boss about it, especially when the boss in question is the lead Democrat on the bill.

The other interesting thing to note here is that this is in many ways a tacit admission that Klobuchar herself did not read the bill. If she had, she wouldn’t have had to rely on a staffer to tell her about the abortion language, and again, she was the bill’s leading Democratic sponsor. This is a disgrace to the institution of the Senate.

However, nothing in this story changes my original assertion from Friday, though: Democrats killed a needed bill on combating human trafficking because they couldn’t stomach even relatively mild and routine language preventing the government from using the funds allocated by this bill to pay for abortions. Whether the amendment was “snuck in” or not, it’s essentially the same as the language used by the Hyde amendment, which has been attached to spending bills since 1976. That’s hardly anything “radical”, “new”, or “sneaky”, contrary to the Democrats’ complaints.

We cannot allow the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act to die. Make sure your Senators know that.

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