Congratulations are in order for Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who helped overcome and impasse in the U.S. Senate to finally pass a bill to help victims of human trafficking.

The bill was set to sail through the Senate several weeks ago when it was discovered that Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas had slipped Hyde Amendment (no government funding for abortion) language into the bill, and it had sailed through committee without anyone noticing. The language tied up bill, which tied up a lot of other Senate work, including the confirmation of attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch.

On Wednesday, a compromise was announced on the human trafficking bill, which is truly a necessary and beneficial law. Klobuchar had come up with the idea to create separate funds, one for medical costs that would be subject to anti-abortion language, and one for non-medical aid for trafficking victims. She hashed it out with senators on the other side of the aisle, and the bill is expected to sail along now.

This is a good and hopeful development. We are hopeful that this piece of bipartisanship will lead to others in a Congress that has all too often been unable to get past partisan politics.

But it is a sign of the troubles Congress has been having that this development is so newsworthy. This is rare, because most of the time Republicans and Democrats refuse to get along or to work together. The common ground gets forgotten as the two sides stake out their ideological claims.

In this case, the cause was good, and some senators decided to work together to make it work. Congratulations to them.

 

— The Journal of New Ulm, April 23