ROLL CALL : THE HOUSE

Romania and Family Planning

By a vote of 224 to 198, the House limited the way $1.5 million for family planning in Romania can be handled. The vote was a victory for anti-abortion forces. It occurred as the House sent a $15.6-billion fiscal 1991 foreign aid bill (HR 5114) to the Senate.

The amendment kept the $1.5 million from being administered by either the Planned Parenthood Federation or the U.N. Fund for Population Activities. Critics say those groups advocate abortion among other population control options. Foes of the amendment called the point moot because the bill already kept any of the Romanian aid from being spent on abortions.

A yes vote supported the anti-abortion position on administering U.S. family planning aid in Romania.

How They Voted Yea Nay No vote Rep. Bates (D) X Rep. Hunter (R) X Rep. Lowery (R) X Rep. Packard (R) X

Aid to Cambodia

By a vote of 260 to 163, the House adopted an Administration-backed amendment to provide $7 million in non-lethal aid to forces fighting the communist, pro-Vietnam government of Cambodia.The aid was controversial because the insurgents include Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, notorious for killing millions of Cambodians while ruling the country in 1975-78.

Sponsor Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.) said the aid would help end the Cambodian civil war and achieve free elections. The Khmer Rouge could not win an election and thus could not regain power, he said.

Opponent Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) said “our policy of aiding the Khmer Rouge alliance has given respectability to the most genocidal killers since the Nazis.”

A yes vote was to send $7 million to anti-government forces in Cambodia including the Khmer Rouge.

How They Voted Yea Nay No vote Rep. Bates (D) X Rep. Hunter (R) X Rep. Lowery (R) X Rep. Packard (R) X

Scenic Rivers

By a vote of 93 to 323, the House refused to prohibit the federal government from using eminent domain as it includes the Niobrara River in Nebraska in the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Several dozen property owners could have their land condemned under a bill (S 28) to put 76 miles of the river into the federal preservation system. The bill was sent to conference with the Senate.

Sponsor Don Young (R-Alaska) said “to have the American government condemn your land because somebody likes to look at it is not America.”

Opponent Peter H. Kostmayer (D-Pa.) said “if we adopt this amendment, we are gutting this legislation. . . . “

A yes vote was to keep the government from condemning land to protect the Niobrara River.

How They Voted Yea Nay No vote Rep. Bates (D) X Rep. Hunter (R) X Rep. Lowery (R) X Rep. Packard (R) X