Glendale News Press, CA
Oct 27 2007
Genocide vote gets postponed
With supporters dropping out, the bill’s author urges House speaker
to wait for a later date.
By Ryan Vaillancourt
GLENDALE – With support for a controversial House resolution
recognizing the Armenian Genocide wavering in Congress, the bill’s
key sponsors are looking to postpone a final vote on the measure
until it has clear majority backing.
In a Thursday letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had planned to
bring the resolution for a vote before Thanksgiving, its author, Rep.
Adam Schiff, and three of the bill’s most ardent advocates urged her
to put the issue on the back burner.
`We believe that a large majority of our colleagues want to support a
resolution recognizing the genocide on the House floor and that they
will do so, provided the timing is more favorable,’ the letter read.
The measure cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a 27-21
vote on Oct. 10, but support in the house has since dwindled. In the
weeks following the vote, 14 co-sponsors withdrew their sponsorship
amid warnings from President Bush’s administration that passage of
the bill would threaten crucial U.S. military relations with Turkey.
In an unprecedented show of support for a genocide resolution, 235
House members were at one time this year listed as co-sponsors. A
total of 24 former co-sponsors have withdrawn, including those who
dropped out after the committee vote, leaving 211 co-sponsors as of
Friday. advertisement
`I don’t have the level of confidence that I would need to have
recommended the speaker to take it up right now,’ Schiff said. `I
think it’s too close.’
The House approved similar genocide resolutions in 1975 and 1984, but
those measures failed to pass the Senate. The issue returned to the
House in 2000 and 2005, passing committee both times but falling
mercy to former Speaker Dennis Hastert who failed to bring those
bills to the floor for a final vote.
This year’s resolution has faltered in a different context. Where the
2000 and 2005 bills reportedly had clear majority support in the
House, a non-supportive Speaker blocked the measures by not calling
them for a vote.
In 2007, the resolution is backed by the speaker, yet majority
support for the measure appears tenuous.
`In this case, we have very close to the majority and it’s not very
clear whether it’s going to pass by a few votes or fail by a few
votes,’ said Harut Sassounian, publisher of the Glendale-based
California Courier and president of the United Armenian Fund.
Taking the bill to the floor poses a potentially perilous political
risk, he said.
`Neither the speaker nor the Armenian community can take a chance of
possibly failing, which will then be magnified a million times by
Turkish deniers,’ Sassounian said.
If the resolution were to fail in the House, opponents, including
Turkey, would spin the decision as affirmation by Congress that the
mass killings of Armenians in the early 20th century was not
genocide, he said.
Calls and an e-mail to the Turkish Embassy press office with request
for comment were not returned.
Though a postponement of a vote has no doubt deflated supporters’
hopes, backers of the resolution appear to side with the decision.
`It is a setback but we don’t consider it a defeat,’ said Elen
Asatryan, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of
America, Glendale chapter. `It’s going to go when it can be won.’
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