A new Nexis scan shows CBS News has still not acknowledged the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts.
The latest hot charge on the left is that a month after 9/11, Republican Scott Brown voted against paid leave for state workers called to be Red Cross emergency workers. Air America shows the level of discourse: "Brown to 9/11 Workers: Drop Dead."
Liberal blogger Greg Sargent of The Plum Line (a Washington Post Co. employee) brought the story:
On October 17th, 2001, Brown voted agains a bill that would authorize "leaves of absence for certain Red Cross employees participating in Red Cross emergencies." The bill gave 15 days of paid leave each year to state workers called up by the Red Cross to respond to disasters. At the time, state workers called for such emergencies were required to use sick and vacation days.
The bill was initially filed before 9/11, and after the attacks, it was made retroactive to 9/11, covering the time spent by state workers who’d assisted with 9/11 recovery work for the Red Cross. Brown’s vote against the measure came a little more than a month after the attack.
You can read the bill and the roll call right here.
Brown spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom justified the vote by pointing to the state’s fiscal straits. "At the time, the state was in a fiscal crisis and facing a deficit, and there was no money to spend on additional pay and benefits for state employees," Fehrnstrom emailed.
Think Progress had a citizen-journalist push Brown for comment, and delighted in his answer that "we had to take care of our own priorities first." They then suggested Brown was pushing a tax-subsidized bond for a golf course in his district.
