Senate Unable To Get Enough Republican Votes To Honor 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

the ONION
4 August 2010

WASHINGTON — Unable to find a single Republican senator willing to break ranks and support the measure, Senate Democrats failed Thursday to stop the filibuster of S. 6253, a one-page resolution recognizing the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. "We almost had Scott Brown (R-MA) on board, but he balked when members of his party insisted the book only be commended if its court-room scenes were shortened a bit and the setting changed to Nebraska," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), explaining the procedural difficulties in passing legislation to honor the classic tale of a small-town lawyer's tireless efforts to defend an innocent man. "If we'd agreed to all their compromises, we'd have wound up with a watered-down version of the novel containing only seven of its original 31 chapters." At press time, Republicans said they would be willing to resume negotiations if the beloved work of American literature is revised so that Tom Robinson is a small-businessman wrongly accused of failing to provide employees with health benefits and Scout is a boy.