Flake Amendment
I watched C-SPAN all morning waiting for the debate on the Hinchey Amendment, but the debate over Representative Flake’s amendment to lay off on Cuban-Americans sending gifts home was a fair bit more interesting. Most of Flake’s fellow Republicans argued that Castro’s regime profits by ransacking every package sent to Cuba, and most of the Democrats made the moral argument that people in Cuba need all the gifts they can get.
Flake closed the debate brilliantly - it’s entirely possible, he conceded, that gift packages will be seized by the government. But, he argued, as Americans the choice of sending them still lies with the senders.
It lost by 6 votes.