PA Finally Gives Sen. Begich His Gold Star

If you're watching the U.S. Senate health care debate on C-SPAN II (I'm not), you might have gotten a chance to see Sen. Mark Begich vote to table Ben Nelson's "coathanger" amendment to the bill that was the Senate version of the House's Stupak Amendment, which would drastically limit women's access to insurance coverage of abortion procedures.

The motion to table was put forth by Sen. Barbara Boxer. Essentially, the 54-45 vote kills the Nelson/Hatch amendment by a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes needed in some scenarios.

Here's a great article on the vote at firedoglake.

Mark deserves this gold star!