Filibuster loses 70-29.......Medicare Bill loses 54-44

[virtualobserver]

There is something sick about someone who wants to go on record and vote against a bill. but isn't willing to vote for a filibuster to actually stop a bill.

on edit: "loses" in the sense that we lose because it passes.

[PDittie]

1. One of "sick"s names is Trent Lott

what a surprise (sarcasm off)

Would anyone know some of the others?

edit: I am mistaken. Lott voted for cloture and against the bill.

[StopThief]

2. Do you honestly believe that. . .

every time a Senator opposes a bill he should filibuster the bill? It would be a terrible precedent for future action on anything in the Senate for it to effectively take 60 votes to pass anything but the most vanilla bills. Think about it.

[virtualobserver]

3. No, but the Democrats have allowed the Republicans to destroy ...

the structural underpinnings of our society. That is a really terrible precedent. When endless streams of totally irresponsible bills flow throught the Senate and are only conceptually opposed, the Democrats cease to be an opposition party. The unwillingness of the Republicans to truly compromise should have compelled Democrats to block them. But some Democrats in Washington live in fear...fear of voting against ANY Medicare benefit legislation, fear of being branded a traitor,and fear of being labeled a "tax and spend liberal". Their cowardice is destroying our future.

[AP]

4. On Diane Rehm's show yesterday, Edwards speculated that...

...someone cut people lose and allowed them to vote the way they wanted to vote on the 54-44 vote. I think he said "Republicans"' cut them lose, but that doesn't make much sense. Maybe he said "someone" and I inserted "Republicans" in my mind. How many Republicans changed their vote beetween the 70/29 and 54/44 vote? The comment came after Rehm and Edwards agreed that 54-44 was closer than many of the votes that Bush has won recently. (Rehm asked Edwards why he thought the vote was so close.)

I'm very confused about what the implication is. Perhaps, the lobbyists pushed the Republicans and conservative democrats very hard on the philibuster vote, but then, realizing that there was a high political price to pay for a yes vote on the bill, didn't press them for the second vote. Or maybe they wanted to sabotage people who switched postions between the two votes, so they gave them enough rope to hang themselves. (That seems to be the spin here.) Since Edwards doesn't talk to lobbyists, presumably he wouldn't know what the lobbyists did on this bill. Maybe he wasn't even talking about lobbyists.

Who knows?

[virtualobserver]

7. I think that you are right....the lobbyists (and Bush) were pushing ....

very hard.

It really depresses me to watch Bush buy off House and Senate members one by one with pork and promises.

If Democrats do not retake the House and Senate, we may not have a country by 2008.

[robbedvoter]

5. Kerry and Edwards huffed & puffed against the bill - then ABSTAINED?

Lieberman voted "No"? Am I in a parallel universe here? Someone wake me up!

[AP]

6. Edwards voted no. He was late for Diane Rehm's show ...

...because he was busy voting no. And then they talked about his no vote. It was aired yesterday. You can listen to it at http://www.wamu.org/dr/index.html .

[Frodo]

8. Not really

We've got plenty of Senators who would vote FOR a number of those court nominees, but continue to vote AGAINST cloture. It's really the same thing. There's the issue being voted on and there is the party discipline of sustaining/breaking a filibuster.

And the political consequences of a "no" are not the same thing as a filibuster.

[virtualobserver]

9. If Democratic Senators lack the courage to stand up to Bush

because of political consequences, then we need new Senators.

[Frodo]

10. Not what I meant.

Voting "no" is easy to defend - (i.e. "I don't support the bill, we can do ebtter" etc.)

A filibuster is a grasp to keep the majority from getting their way. There's a different standard. I can say "I don't support this bill", but plenty of Democratic Senators can say "We won't be getting anything better out of this Congress and it gives SOME benefits. I won't put my name on it, but I can't stop a majority from enacting it... I'll just fight to improve it".

[0007]

11. A filitbuster would have at least given time for folks to read ....

the fine details, that we're gonna get screwed on.