Franken’s first amendment: Service dogs for wounded vets

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has introduced his first piece of legislation.

TPM reports that Franken successfully added an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill last night that will fund a pilot program to provide service dogs to wounded veterans.

Franken introduced the measure along with Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and had additional cosponsors from both sides of the aisle: Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Mark Begich (D-AK), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and John Ensign (R-NV).

This is not the final piece of legislation, as the Defense Authorization will still have to go through the conference committee process. That said, the chances are probably very good that the Franken-Isakson Service Dogs for Veterans Act will be in the bill that gets signed by President Obama.

For what it’s worth, Franken has been championing this program for a while. When I covered Franken’s appearance at a USO event here in DC a few months back, Franken told reporters that he’d push for the service dog program as soon as he got to the Senate. (At that time, he was still in the midst of a legal battle.)