On Final Day Before Recess, House Votes On Welfare Bill

Democrats in the region are accusing House Republican leaders of playing politics with their last week in D.C. ahead of November's elections. 

One of the last votes on the House docket before members return to their districts is whether to undo an Obama Administration rule allowing states more flexibility in how they dole out welfare money. 

The campaign of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has latched onto the rule change to paint the president as undoing welfare work requirements. That claim has been debunked by numerous fact checkers, but House Republicans still voted Thursday to undo it. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) called the move a purely political one. 

"It's a message bill and what the Republicans aren't saying in their message is the president has not diluted the work requirement," Scott says. "He's actually enhanced it."

But Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) still thinks the vote has merit, despite what fact-checkers say about Romney's claims.  

"If it isn't true, then there shouldn't be any Democrat objection to a bill that says do what the original law said. So no harm," Griffith says.

Today is the last day the House is scheduled to be in session until after the elections, and lawmakers of both parties plan to talk up the welfare work requirement vote while campaigning — with or without the assistance of fact checkers.