Cloture Vote Fails, but New Threat Emerges
By Bluey Posted in Featured Stories | Immigration — Comments (15) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Senate just voted 33-63 not to invoke cloture on the immigration bill, meaning that it cannot proceed to a final vote at this time. However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) is planning to spend the afternoon twisting arms in anticipation for another cloture vote at 5 p.m. today.
In the meantime, Capitol Hill sources tell me that the White House may be working with Senate supporters of the original bill to strip out all amendments that have been added. Such a move deeply worries conservatives.
"It looks like the 'Masters of the Universe' might want a mulligan," said one conservative GOP aide. "But there are some folks who take their golf pretty seriously here in the Senate. I expect multiple senators would object to such a desperate tactic."
Conservative activists have ramped up calls to key Senate offices today in hopes that enough grassroots pressure will convince senators to oppose the bill.
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Cloture Vote Fails, but New Threat Emerges 15 Comments (0 topical, 15 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I don't get that either. Other than trying to run out the clock on real debate and bringing in more ammendments to consider. A lot of what the senate does makes me scratch my head. Most of the maneuvering is CYA and smoke/mirror stuff that isn't good for America IMHO.
To win the war on terror, we first have to win the war against spineless liberal appeasement at home.
is that it's related to how these guys are absolutely obsessed with quoting meaningless numbers. (Both sides do it - McConnell or Lott was doing it this morning.) I guess Reid wants to be able to say that the GOP has blocked the bill 3 times already. That's a BS argument if the votes are consecutive of course, but we couldn't expect the MSM to point out that little detail now could we?
Why doesn't the Senate have electronic voting from their desks? In addition to being a time waster, it seems archaic to me to have vocal roll call voting with everyone ending up on senate floor and then Byrd yelling for order on the floor.
To win the war on terror, we first have to win the war against spineless liberal appeasement at home.
"Well if this immigration bill fails it will be just another failure for the Bush administration. This is his bill."
Sounds like a hedge against failure.
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
This IS Bush's bill (well, his and Ted's). If it fails to pass, it's because he failed to convince the public that it's worth passing. Now I certainly won't be crying over it, but Dingy Harry does speak the truth on that one.
What about all the grand bargain bipartisanship talk? If the bill passes Harry Reid would take credit for rescuing the poor Bush bill. If it goes down, it is Bush's bill. Of course bipartisanship has no ownership in a loser bill. Watching CSPAN is bad for my health.
To win the war on terror, we first have to win the war against spineless liberal appeasement at home.
perhaps this is a harbinger for the bill being defeated - Good news for the country. If it passes, would Reid acknowledge that it was Bush's bill?
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
It's good news this time that Harry cries defeat.
To win the war on terror, we first have to win the war against spineless liberal appeasement at home.
as i looked at who voted against cloture, it includes some people i thought were in favor of the bill (alexander of tennessee, e.g., among others).
what are the odds that 27 senators 'flip' between now and 5pm when the next vote takes place? what's going on behind the scenes that i don't understand?
TYIA
Perhaps it's a CYA thing where they want to tell their constituents "Yes I wanted some extra time so we could fully debate this, but after that was done (i.e. after a mere couple add'l hours), then we were reduced to the Republicans blocking progress."
As the OP pointed out, the White House wants all amendments stripped from the bill? Why does it worry them so much? I mean, the amendments may the bill more appealing to conservatives (like GW Bush). Shouldn't he be happy?
Sometimes I like the 'Masters of the Universe' (aka White House) and sometimes I don't. This is one of the latter moments.
McConnell poked Reid in the eye this morning, objecting to his attempt to move the vote from 10am to 5pm. Reid's warning was that he had talked to Chertoff and asked him to tell the President that the press would report it as a failure of Bush if Reid couldn't get the bill through. What a dork. McConnell's position was obviously that Reid never should have scheduled it and Mitch would teach him a lesson by wasting a good part of the day voting on it anyway.
Anyway, cloture failed 33-63, then there was a reconsideration that failed 34-61, and now they're on another round of it. What's the deal? Isn't this just the same vote over and over? Apparently Reid had to vote no on his own motion so that he could ask for it to be reconsidered later, but what's he doing? He wasting the day with all the reconsiderations and the GOP will say they still haven't had a chance to be heard.