Reply #36: NYTimes: Senate Approves Easing of Curbs on Cuba Travel [View All]

[Osolomia]

By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
Published: October 24, 2003

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — In a firm rebuke to President Bush over Cuba policy, the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly voted to ease travel restrictions on Americans seeking to visit the island.

... The vote also highlighted a widening split between two important Republican constituencies: farm-state Republicans, who oppose trade sanctions in general or are eager to increase sales to Cuba, and Cuban-American leaders, who want to curb travel and trade to punish Mr. Castro. The White House views Cuban-Americans as essential to Mr. Bush's re-election prospects in Florida.

The Senate last rejected an easing of travel restrictions in 1999, by a vote of 43 to 55. But in an indication of how much the political and policy pendulum has swung, 13 senators who voted against easing the curbs four years ago switched sides and voted for it on Thursday.

Several influential Republican senators voted against the president, including John W. Warner of Virginia, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee; and Pat Roberts of Kansas, the chairman of the intelligence committee; as did many conservatives from farming states, including James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sam Brownback of Kansas and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.

Senator Michael B. Enzi, a Wyoming Republican who co-sponsored the amendment, criticized what he called an American "stranglehold" on Cuba, a country of 11 million people less than 100 miles from the United States. The decades-old travel ban, he said, merely deepens Cubans' misery without providing fresh ideas to the Marxist-led nation.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/politics/24CUBA.html?ex=1067572800&en=477b31027fe3cdc9&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE