Coburn in flames

Update on the Coburn amendments from yesterday.  I noted that Instapundit was a bit confused about Senators shooting down the amendment in question.  Apparently there are several amendments up for discussion.  The one mentioned in my previous post has not come up yet.  Three of them just got shot down.

The U.S. Senate voted 86-13 against three anti-pork spending amendments offered by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK. The Coburn amendments would have repealed $500,000 previously authorized for a sculpture park in Seattle, Washington, $200,000 to build an animal shelter in Westerly, RI, and $200,000 to build a parking lot in Omaha, Nebraska, and re-directed the funds to help pay instead for Hurricane Katrina recovery.

Tapscott also has a list of all the Senators voting Yea (shooting down the amendments) and nea.
Sadly, both of my Senators are on the Yea list.

Update:  AP article reporting that the amendment to divert the money from the Alaska bridge to the New Orleans repairs was defeated 85-15.

This was also interesting:

The Senate later rejected the Coburn measure, 82-15. It also turned down a Stevens counterproposal to hold up spending for all bridges around the country until the Louisiana bridge is funded, by 61-33.

So I guess there’s no option that the majority of Senators like that takes money away from their states, even if only temporarily.

Senator Stevens speaks:

But in the tradition-bound Senate, Coburn was taking on an unwritten rule that one senator does not attack the projects sought by another.

"I've been here now almost 37 years," Stevens said. "This is the first time I have seen any attempt of any senator to treat my state in a way different from any other state."

"I don't kid people," he said. If the Senate decides ... to take money from our state, I will resign from this body."

No great loss if you do though.  Basically, what I’m hearing in that first statement (above unwritten rule) is that Senators idea of what is important to them is not subject to the scrutiny of their peers in the Senate.  Even if that goal is not beneficial to the nation as a whole? 

So the federally funded sculpture park in Washington is necessary just because Patty Murray says it is?

(Coburn) riled his fellow Republicans earlier in the day when he went after several far smaller projects, one a $500,000 sculpture park in Washington, the home state of Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the subcommittee overseeing the spending bill.

"We have very different philosophies on how we serve our country," Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., the chairman of the subcommittee, said in reproaching Coburn for questioning the decisions of other senators on what projects are important to their states. The Senate voted 86-13 against that amendment.

Apparently so.