CNN's Keilar claimed Congress “stalled” on SCHIP without noting presidential vetoes

In a report on CNN's The Situation Room, Brianna Keilar reported that, "[i]n recent weeks, Congress has stalled on legislation to expand the children's health insurance program," but she did not mention that Congress twice passed legislation to reauthorize and expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which President Bush vetoed.


On the December 13 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, correspondent Brianna Keilar said: “In recent weeks, Congress has stalled on legislation to expand the children's health insurance program.” In fact, Congress twice passed legislation to reauthorize and expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), but President Bush vetoed the first bill on October 3 and the second on December 12. The House voted on whether to override Bush's first veto on October 18, but the attempt failed, 273-156 -- 17 votes short of the required two-thirds majority. The House voted to postpone consideration of an override of Bush's second veto until January 23, 2008.

Keilar also reported that Congress has not passed legislation under consideration to “stop the alternative minimum tax from hitting millions more Americans, and reform the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program, not to mention the failure to fund almost the entire federal government and give the president more money for the war on Iraq.”

From the December 13 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

KEILAR: Democratic presidential candidates hot off the campaign trail sped into Washington today, spending less than an hour on the Senate floor to vote “yes” on two measures, votes that in the end didn't really matter.

BEN NELSON (D-NE): The motion is not agreed to.

KEILAR: And with that, a Democratic push on a critical energy bill fell short. It's a different day, but in a way, the same old story: Faced with a determined president and a unified Republican minority, this Democratic-led Congress has held many votes that have failed.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): When one side or the other tries to jam their agenda down the throats of the other side, it doesn't work, and exhibit A is the dismal record of this broken Congress during this last year.

KEILAR: On the flip side, Democrats accuse Republicans of stonewalling.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY): My Republican colleagues are filibustering themselves out of their seats come 2008.

KEILAR: In recent weeks, Congress has stalled on legislation to expand the children's health insurance program, stop the alternative minimum tax from hitting millions more Americans, and reform the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program, not to mention the failure to fund almost the entire federal government and give the president more money for the war in Iraq. Democrats say their votes are important even if they don't win.

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We signaled change, we've made a difference, and now we're showing, in order to get much more of this done, we can do some of it this year, but we need a Democratic president and we need stronger majorities in the House and Senate.

KEILAR: Democrats are showing some signs of giving into the president's demands in the hopes that they can get some of this taken care of ahead of the holidays. It looks like, ultimately, they will approve the latest installment of war funding without strings attached. And Senate Democrats have a plan to scrap tax increases for oil companies from the energy bill in the hopes that they can pass that here in the next couple of hours.