By Hayes Brown/Think Progress
On Thursday, CNN host Anderson Coopershone the spotlight on Republicans who voted against a U.N. treaty protecting people with disabilities, highlighting lawmakers who backed away from supporting the measure in response to conservative misinformation and opposition.
Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) featured prominently in Cooper’s “Keeping Them Honest” segment. He reported that Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), formerly a co-sponsor of the motion to ratify the treaty, suddenly backed out even after meeting with former GOP Presidential candidate Bob Dole, a proponent of the measure.
The lawmakers declined an invitation to come onto the show to explain themselves, leaving Cooper to condemn their dishonesty:
COOPER: And keeping them honest, they used arguments that just frankly did not square with the facts. They weren’t true. [...] We can only guess their motivations, and frankly, some of this is just so baffling that we’d be taking wild guesses, and we just don’t want to do that.
Watch Cooper’s full segment here:
Prominent conservative groups, rallied by Rick Santorum, denounced the treaty on the false premise that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) would strip parents with disabled children of their rights. As a result of their efforts, though, the treaty failed by a mere five votes.
The Republicans who changed their votes have drawn widespread criticism from disabilities rights groups and Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised to bring the treaty up for a vote in the next session of Congress.
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