Dorgan, Enzi push to end Cuba travel ban

[babylonsister]

Dorgan, Enzi push to end Cuba travel ban
By J. Taylor Rushing - 10/12/09 06:00 AM ET


Two senators seeking to end the 46-year-old ban on U.S. travel to Cuba are finding it difficult to get their measure to the Senate floor.

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) have revived a bill they first introduced in March to lift the ban that was initially imposed by the Kennedy administration in Feb. 1963.

The bill has attracted 32 co-sponsors, including Sen. Richard Lugar (Ind.), ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

But Dorgan, a member of Democratic leadership as chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, said he doesn’t know how to get the bill onto the Senate floor.

Quizzed about his strategy on Thursday, Dorgan said he is searching for a committee that can pass the legislation — or somehow take it straight to the floor.

“We have not yet found a way,” Dorgan said in a recent floor speech. “When we do, I guarantee we will have sufficient votes on the floor of the Senate to offer the American people the freedom they should have had in the last 50 or 60 years, and that is freedom to travel. In this case that freedom has been taken from them and it is outrageous.”

Lifting the travel ban is opposed by most Republicans, and many centrist Democrats expressed unease with the idea. At the same time, they acknowledge the present Cuban policy has been ineffective.

more...

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/62589-dogan-enzi-push-to-end-cuba-travel-ban

[madrchsod]

1. agricultural trade with cuba is the main reason

it`s time to bury the hatchet... the cold war has been over for years.