Democratic U.S. Rep. and Senate candidate Kendrick Meek, on a conference call with reporters, said he missed Tuesday’s vote on financing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because it was originally scheduled for later in the week and moved up at the last minute.

Meek was campaigning in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach early Tuesday and didn’t get to Washington until it was too late, a spokesman said earlier today.

With Democrats increasingly divided on the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, Meek said he would have joined the majority in the 308-114 House vote for more money for military operations.

“My record stands clear, that I’ve supported the men and women in uniform,” Meek said on the conference call. He noted the large margin by which the bill passed and added that “there was not a threat that the funding was not going to be approved.”

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, voted against a spending bill Tuesday to continue financing the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill passed 308-114, with Hastings and 101 other House Democrats going against the wishes of President Obama.

Palm Beach County’s other House members — Democrats Ted Deutch and Ron Klein and Republican Tom Rooney — supported the bill.

Hastings Chief of Staff Lale Mamaux on Hastings’ vote:

Congressman Hastings joined a majority of his colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in voting against the supplemental appropriations bill. The Senate version of the bill that the House passed was stripped of critical domestic and CBC priorities (i.e. funding for teachers, police, and fire fighters, Pell Grants, youth summer jobs, TANF Emergency Contingency Fund, and settlement funds for the decades-old discrimination Pigford and Cobell lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Ag).

Furthermore, as it pertains to Afghanistan the Congressman believes that it is past time that we re-examine our strategy in Afghanistan. He is a co-sponsor of H.R. 5015, to require a plan for the safe, orderly, and expeditious redeployment of US Forces from Afghanistan. The legislation was introduced by Congressman Jim McGovern on April 14, 2010.

With Democrats increasingly divided on the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 308-to-114 late today for a supplemental spending bill that includes $37 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Obama’s request got more support from Republicans (160 votes) than Democrats (148 votes). Local U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, voted yes. U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, joined 101 other Dems and 12 Republicans in voting no.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, did not vote. Meek, who’s running for U.S. Senate, was campaigning in South Florida earlier in the day.

Click here to see the complete roll call.

Former state Rep. Gayle Harrell of Stuart is in Iraq, where she was part of a seven-member group from the National Foundation for Women Legislators that monitored Sunday’s elections.

Harrell said she was inspired by Iraqi voters who were not intimidated by terrorists who tried to disrupt the elections. Harrell said explosions of home-made “bottle bombs” slowed down voting but didn’t scare away voters.

“They were not intimidated by this. They were very angry…They were in total defiance of the terrorists,” Harrell said by telephone from Baghdad, where she’s staying at the U.S. Embassy.

(more…)

Conservative freshman U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, doesn’t often join with the likes of liberal Democratic U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Maxine Waters, John Conyers and Fortney H. “Pete” Stark. But Rooney and most of the House GOP were joined by 32 largely anti-war Dems in Tuesday’s vote on appropriating money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The $106 billion measure passed 226-202, with 221 Democrats — including local U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings, Ron Klein and Robert Wexler — in favor. All but five Republicans voted against the measure, objecting to an array of non-military measures added to the bill.

Statements by Rooney and Kucinich illustrate the odd coalition that voted against the bill.

(more…)