Reid to GOP, No Up Or Down Vote On Iraq, No Defense Department Funding.

TPM is reporting that after losing the cloture vote on Levin-Reed this morning Harry Reid surprised everybody by announcing that the Senate is not going to take up the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill until the GOP promises an up or down vote on Iraq. Here are Harry Reid's comments

I have temporarily laid aside the Defense Authorization bill and have entered a motion to reconsider.

But let me be clear to my Republican colleagues – I emphasize the word "temporarily". We will do everything in our power to change course in Iraq. We will do everything in our power to complete consideration of a Defense Authorization bill. We must do both.

And just to remind my Republican colleagues – even if this bill had passed yesterday, its provisions would not take effect until October.

So we will come back to this bill as soon as it is clear we can make real progress. To that end, I have asked the Democratic Whip and Democratic Manager of the bill to sit down with their counterparts to work on a process to address all outstanding issues related to this bill so the Senate can return to it as soon as possible.

Harry Reid is from Nevada. I guess he is a better poker player than I thought. Lots of pressure is going to be applied by defense contractors all across the country. Can you imagine the earful Mitch McConnell is going to get from Boeing's lobbyist this afternoon?

There's more: "Reid to GOP, No Up Or Down Vote On Iraq, No Defense Department Funding." >>

What Next? It All Depends On Harry

A cloture vote has been scheduled for 11:00 Eastern this morning. It is expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to force an up or down vote. Donny Shaw at the OpenCongress-Congress Gossip Blog has examined what might happen next.

There are about 200 other amendments to the Department of Defense Authorization bill and Harry Reid could choose to move on to debating and voting on them. Or, he could hold another all-night debate ending in another cloture vote on the Levin-Reed amendment.

According to the Congressional Research Service Report all 100 Senators and their staffs are studying very closely,

There often has been more than one cloture vote on the same question. If and when the Senate rejects a cloture motion, a Senator then can file a second motion to invoke cloture on that question. In some cases, Senators even have anticipated that a cloture motion may fail, so they have filed a second motion before the Senate has voted on the first one. For example, one cloture motion may be presented on Monday and another on Tuesday. If the Senate rejects the first motion when it matures on Wednesday, the second motion will ripen for a vote on Thursday. (If the Senate agrees to the first motion, there is no need, of course, for it to act on the second.) There have been instances in which there have been even more cloture votes on the same question. During the 100th Congress (1987-1988), for example, there were eight cloture votes, all unsuccessful, in connection with a campaign finance reform bill.

In short, losing today's cloture vote is not necessarily the end of Levin-Reed. If as Bmaz suggests this is all political theater Harry will decide to abandon Levin-Reed and move forward to consider other amendments, which is exactly what the New York Times reported they would do yesterday. If Reid is really serious he can keep the all nighters going until the Republicans say uncle.

How much delay the Senate experiences depends in part on how much time the Senate, and especially its majority party leadership, is prepared to devote to the bill in question. If the bill is particularly important to the nation and to the majority party’s legislative agenda, for example, the majority leader may be willing to invest the days or even weeks that can be necessary to withstand and ultimately end a filibuster.

UP OR DOWN VOTE.

There's more: "What Next? It All Depends On Harry" >>

Up Or Down Vote, Up Or Down Vote, Up Or Down Vote

Earlier this month I reported that Senate Republicans have embraced an obstructionist strategy. Republicans have converted the Senate rule requiring 60 votes to force a vote on a topic (cloture) into a rule requiring 60 votes to pass anything. The Democrats either surrender to the Republicans or nothing gets done.

Donny Shaw of Congress Gossip Blog reports that Wednesday's 56-41 vote on the Webb Amendment was the 47th time Senate Republicans have forced a cloture vote since the beginning of the 110th Congress. Shaw believes that if they maintain their current pace "by the end of the 110th Congress, Republicans will have forced cloture votes 144 times," shattering the old record of 82 set by the 104th Congress.

There is a way to break all this Republican obstructionism. Draw attention to it. Voters don't like "do nothing" Senators.

There is a way to draw attention to it. As Blue Girl suggested last night Harry Reid should force a real filibuster. It would be wonderful to see some Republican or Joe Lieberman "talk for as long as he can. Bring out the roll-away beds and make the bastard stand there until his ankles swell and his lips crack and he can’t go on another second."

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott recently boasted, "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. So far it's working for us." It would be wonderful if Harry forced Trent to spend the rest of this month standing in the well of the Senate reading the phone book. Every chance we get, we have to be demand an "up or down vote."

There's more: "Up Or Down Vote, Up Or Down Vote, Up Or Down Vote" >>