Local Representatives Fail to Support Debt Cancellation
Voices of local Congregations Ignored by Three Republican Congressmen who voted “No” Despite Bipartisan Support in Congress By Jean O’Leary
Leaders of churches, development agencies, and civil rights, labor, and human rights groups praised the passage by the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote 285-132 of the Jubilee Act (2634). The legislation calls the U.S. Treasury Department to negotiate a multilateral agreement for debt cancellation for up to 24 additional poor countries that need cancellation to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Jubilee USA Network, which includes 20 Jubilee Congregations from a variety of churches and faith communities in San Diego County, is an alliance of 80 national organizations that has been leading the advocacy for the legislation. “We commend the US Congress for its bold step in passing the Jubilee Act and listening to the people of the impoverished nations who have borne the burden of unjust debt for far too long,” said Rev. Bill Harman, a retired Encinitas pastor and member of the Board of Jubilee USA Network. “We hope that House passage will inspire the US Senate to move quickly to also pass the Jubilee Act and send it to the President for immediate action.”
Representatives Bilbray, Issa, and Hunter all received several delegations and messages of support for the Jubilee Act over the past months from local people of faith. Despite verbal and some written expressions of probable support for the act, after receiving thousands of written appeals from their constituents, they all failed to join Representatives Filner and Davis in voting “yes.”
WHY? We await replies from each of them soon. We hope their replies will reflect a reasoned response based on their faith perspectives and moral values and not on purely political considerations.
Can Representatives Issa and Hunter explain to us from their faith and moral values perspective their failure to join their fellow 69 republicans who publicly project “compassionate conservativism” and the importance of faith in the shaping of public policy as well as democrats like Representatives Davis and Filner to vote for this piece of legislation?
We await their replies.
