Without the help of Ben Nelson, Democrats were able to break the GOP filibuster on the jobs bill with the help of Kit Bond, George Voinovich, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Scott Brown. The final vote was 62-30, with Frank Lautenberg missing the vote because of his chemo. As Aravosis points out, Conservatives are on […]
Now it looks like the Republicans have found a loophole that will let them block items in reconciliation: Republicans say they have found a loophole in the budget reconciliation process that could allow them to offer an indefinite number of amendments. Though it has never been done, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says he’s prepared to […]
Yesterday during the President’s Q&A session with House Republicans Mike Pence asked President Obama why he won’t support across the board tax cuts like Reagan wanted. This has been a key issue for Republicans for decades and I am wondering why they never did it when they had total control of the government. Think about […]
Senate Democrats would do well to listen to Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell: “My message to those Democrats is don’t be afraid,” Rendell told ABC News. “Listen, you got elected because you wanted to do something to change the quality of people’s lives — here we have a chance to do something historic and if it […]
The Democratic Party has become an utter train wreck since Tuesday night. Now we have this from Diane Feinstein: Feinstein said it is clear that attempts to pass sweeping legislation to address climate change by capping carbon emissions cannot pass this Congress. So if Democrats are just going to cave in on any important legislation […]
Ezra Klein, one of the most vocal bill-backers, has a really good plan – scrap the bill. But that doesn’t mean healthcare reform is dead. Instead he offers up items that could easily go through reconciliation: Democrats could scrap the legislation and start over in the reconciliation process. But not to re-create the whole bill. […]
People for the American Way released a report examining the filibuster in the Senate. They have found during the current session of Congress that cloture was invoked a record 89% of the time. Here is a historical graph showing the sharp increase in the usage this year: But the report goes beyond that, to a […]
Ezra Klein interviewed Sen. Tom Harkin and this really caught my eye: Tell me a bit about your reform bill. When you first introduced this, Joe Lieberman was your co-sponsor, right? Well, I introduced that first in 1995, when we were in the minority. I’m going to reintroduce that again in January. And people are […]
Without the public option the Senate bill still will cost an additional $19 billion according to the much anticipated CBO report. Also premiums won’t go down with the removal of the public option, as some had been pushing: The CBO has concluded that, on average, premiums will be the same as they would have been […]
Let’s face it, Harry Reid is a horrible poker player. He folds every time before finding out if his opponents were bluffing or not. How do I know this? Simple. Since becoming majority leader in 2007 Harry Reid has faced countless threats of a filibuster and never once has he made the opposition go through […]