Civil and Human Rights Coalition Says Senators Should Be ‘Ashamed’ for Blocking Jobs Bill

Senate Republicans, joined by two Democrats, last night blocked President Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act from advancing to a full vote.

“The senators who voted to keep the Senate from debating the American Jobs
Act should be ashamed of themselves,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human rights, following the filibuster of the jobs bill.  “No issue is more pressing than the jobs
crisis. Yet instead of the bold action that Americans are demanding, the Senate
today delivered only more procedural gamesmanship.”

In the face of persistently high unemployment and a struggling
economy, President Obama proposed the America Jobs Act to help put
people back to work and start addressing many of the nation’s urgent
needs. The Leadership Conference and its coalition partners support the bill, and have been calling particular attention to higher unemployment rates for Black, Latino, and younger Americans.

“The American Jobs Act is a serious and comprehensive plan to reduce
unemployment in the short term and put our nation on a more solid economic
footing in the long run,” said Henderson. “It’s a plan that should receive strong bipartisan
support – even in today’s contentious political climate. Even senators who
disagree with parts of the plan should be willing to debate the bill on the
Senate floor and to work, in a bipartisan fashion, to improve it.”