Shift in Cuba policy anticipated under Obama

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sunday, 12.14.08
Shift in Cuba policy anticipated under Obama
By JACK CHANG
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Throughout his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama said that he'd loosen some restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba and rebuild the already slight ties to the communist nation cut by the Bush administration.

With an Obama government soon to become reality, many in the U.S. capital are pushing for much more.

The question of what U.S. Cuban policy will look like under Obama has fed one of the moment's biggest foreign-policy debates, and a loose coalition of legislators, free-trade advocates and leftist groups thinks that it has an ally in the president-elect.

Legislators such as Reps. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., and Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., want to pass legislation that would allow all U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba, which would undo prohibitions that the U.S. government has imposed almost continuously since 1962. That embargo prohibits nearly all trade, travel or other types of exchanges with Cuba.

~snip~
Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., said that about 50 legislators from both parties supported canceling the travel ban.

~snip~
"There will be major changes, there's no doubt," Delahunt said. "President Obama was clear. We want to move in a different direction."

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/812398.html

[Vogon_Glory]

1. How Many Republicans Oppose The Travel Restrictions?

I wonder how many Republicans oppose the Cuban travel restrictions? I know that most of them either toed the line when Hastert, DeLay, and Gingrich told them to or didn't do anything to dump the restrictions, but now that the three of them are out of office, it should be interesting to see how many Repuds would repudiate the restrictions.

As for the Democrats, I do wonder how many of them would vote to CONTINUE the travel restrictions.