Missouri lawmakers vote present on KU’s Orange Bowl resolution

Talk about sour grapes.When the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution lauding the Jayhawks for their victory in the Orange Bowl, it passed without objection. All told, 396 representatives from across the country voted to praise the Jayhawks.But 12 members took the easy way out and voted present – neither for or against the resolution. It makes sense that Rick Boucher, the U.S. Representative for Blacksburg, Va., chose not to support the resolution, seeing as his district includes the Virginia Tech campus. The Jayhawks beat the Hokies in the Orange Bowl.Among the other 11 present voters, nine of them shared a common thread in that they all represent one particular state: Missouri. In fact, not a single member of the Missouri Congressional delegation supported the resolution.Sam Graves, who represents an area of North Kansas City, told the Kansas City Star “The Tigers had a better (season). Mizzou won the Border War, won the Big 12 North, and they won the Cotton Bowl. As a Mizzou grad it’s hard for me to vote for anything that has the words ‘congratulate’ and ‘Kansas’ in it.”As an aside, as my colleague Ryan Wood pointed out earlier this week, the text of the legislation includes a couple of errors, like the final score. KU does expect those errors to corrected in the version of the legislation that is published.