Bernie Sanders and the Minuteman Militia

[SunSeeker]

32. And he voted for it over the vocal objection of Loretta Sanchez.

This 2006 amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill reads:

“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide a foreign government information relating to the activities of an organized volunteer civilian action group, operating in the State of California, Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona, unless required by international treaty.”

(I bolded for emphasis) The Congressional Record shows the Dems were livid. Dem rep. Loretta Sanchez from California demanded a recorded vote, not a mere anonymous voice vote. Here's the Congressional Record link to Sanchez' comments and that Amendment language
https://www.congress.gov/amendment/109th-congress/house-amendment/971

The language prohibited notifications of activity only in the states of California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona - all states on the Mexican border. No such prohibition applied, of course, to groups operating in the border states of Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Maine or Sen. Sanders' home state, Vermont. But then again, these militias are not trying to keep out white Canadians. They are only concerned with our brown southern neighbor, Mexico.

Republicans in Congress were protecting their base: the anti-immigrant racists and gun nuts, both of which were personified in the "Minuteman" groups, the members of which arm themselves and play illegitimate border patrol. But why did Bernie vote YES?
Thanks to Loretta Sanchez, here's the link to the recorded vote: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll224.xml

The amendment passed with 293 votes, including those of 69 Democrats. Some of those Democrats were too afraid to vote otherwise given Bush's victory in 2004, and others were too conservative. But none of them claims to be progressive. Except Bernie Sanders.

Thanks to this amendment that Sanders voted for, these vigilante border militia groups were legitimized and enabled. It allowed them go around openly talking about putting bullets between the eyes of Mexicans and Latin Americans along the border. Of course, this presented a threat to Latino Americans as well. One Minuteman militia group murdered two Latino American citizens, a father and his 9 year old daughter, in 2009 in their home. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Raul_and_Brisenia_Flores