All 40 Senate Republicans will filibuster ObamaCare at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday
For those of you glued to your laptops when PelosiCare was passed a couple of weeks ago, this Saturday’s fight in the Senate will consist of 10 hours of debate, which were won by Republicans in return for their not having the entire bill read on the floor.
According to Roll Call (subscription required, but the snippet is there), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) will join the other 39 Republicans in the filibuster.
The first vote is scheduled for 8:00 p.m., so, if my math is correct, the debate begins at 10:00 a.m. In any event, the debate will be all day. It is crunch time.
As Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) notes at RedState, a vote by Democrats to proceed to a debate is a vote on the substance of the bill. Once the Democrats get the first 60 votes, they only need a majority to pass the bill itself. They will then allow vulnerable members of their caucus to vote against the final bill. It is a John Kerry “I voted for the bill before I voted against it” line of BS.
But don’t be fooled by senators that will say they oppose a government takeover but just wanted to allow debate on health care, they are not being honest.
The simple fact is this: Any senator that votes to proceed to the Reid-Obama bill is voting for a government takeover of health care.
Why? Because, President Obama and Harry Reid cannot pass a government takeover without clearing 60 vote procedural hurdles in the Senate — but they also know that vulnerable Democrats likely cannot win reelection if they vote for this unpopular bill. So they want all Democrats to stick together on the vote to proceed, then some Democrats will vote against final passage of the bill and claim they tried to stop it.
Senators who say they just want to allow for debate are trying to deceive their voters while giving President Obama the crucial votes he needs to pass a government takeover of health care.
The next few days should be very interesting.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bill_Dupray, Bill Dupray. Bill Dupray said: #tcot All 40 Senate Republicans will filibuster ObamaCare at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday: For those of you glued to your lapto http://url4.eu/nDIZ [...]
Wow, if ever there was a ’shoot the messenger’ situation, this is it. Senator Jim ‘Waterloo’ DeMint says that a vote to invoke cloture is a vote for Obamacare. Does that mean that if Senator Lincoln doesn’t vote with the Democrats to end the Republican filibuster, and the bill fails, she won’t face a fierce Republican campaign to tar her as an ‘O-bot’ and unseat her next November? Really? Sorry Senator DeMint. Your money is no good here.
Bill – I don’t think you are correct on the procedure. The vote on Saturday to allow – or not allow – the bill to go to the floor for debate, will not be the last opportunity for a procedural vote leading to a filibuster. After the bill is debated, there will be a procedural vote as to whether the final bill (as amended during the process to come) should be put to a final vote of the Senate. That is when you can expect the ‘big’ vote — one that will end up in a filibuster unless changes are made that satisfy the Democrats that are against and Lieberman. So, it isn’t a case where only a majority vote is needed if the bill makes it to the floor after tomorrow’s vote.
The vote is set for 8:00 pm because that is when the crackhead reid goes to bed to watch cartoons….
In response to another comment. See in context »If it’s national health care…let’s but it on a national ballot and let the people decide…
If you gave any of these 100 senators ten bucks each to go out and buy a box of bandaids….you would never see any of them again.
Hello anylevinson,
There is no such thing as a “national ballot”. The US government does not conduct any elections at all. All elections are tun by the states.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] tomorrow morning. Harry Reid needs 60 votes just to proceed with debate, because the Republicans do not want to deal with this thing at all. If they filibuster, let us hope they forgo the phonebooks and pledge allegiance to the flag for [...]
I think rick is correct and what will happen is that Lieberman and friends will then make the bill a bonanza for the insurance companies. High fines for enforcing the mandate and a tightening of eligibility for any public option and a weakening of a public option to in anyway compete with the insurance companies.
[...] threatening this small group of Democratic senators who would let the bill advance to debate. Our Bill Dupray for instance noted that to the Republican political apparatus, a vote to proceed to debate would be [...]
Bill this is a sloppy mistake of yours, the Republican senators are going to vote against cloture, there will be no filibusters. You should know better, really. BTW in case you haven’t seen this yet:
McConnell: Dems have health bill votes, but GOP won’t give up
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/68985-mcconnell-dems-have-votes-to-pass-reform-but-gop-wont-stop-opposing
Bill this cake is just about baked!
Well I watched all day, I didn’t see any filibuster.