An Auburn letter writer recently expressed umbrage (“Dispatch article could be more complete, less partisan,” June 26), occasioned by his perception of a too-liberal editorial bias in the reprinting by the Portland Press Herald of an Associated Press dispatch advancing the notion that Republican conservatives were responsible for holding up Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act.

However, in his zeal to chastise the editors of the Press Herald for their collective (presumably, left-leaning) approval of the “partisan position” taken by the writer of the dispatch, the letter’s author himself apparently failed to give the matter its due diligence.

“Why were the six absent senators not responsible for this bill’s failure? Which party were they in?” he asked.

A quick glance at the (56-38) Senate vote regarding S. 2432 on that day (June 11) would have revealed that of the six senators not voting, only one was a Democrat – hardly enough to top the supermajority required to bring the bill forward.

Furthermore, the sole Democratic negative response was that of the majority leader, whose “nay” vote was a procedural one, cast in order to keep the bill alive for future consideration.

Which some might think kind of does place the onus on Senate Republicans regarding the majority’s failure to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed, and the inability of the Senate to take up this important legislation in a timely fashion.

Charles C. Cate

Ogunquit

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