Background: Harry Reid wants to waste precious Senate time on a Constitutional amendment that would significantly limit the First’s freedom of speech protections (all in the name of fighting Charles and David Koch, who apparently live under Harry Reid’s bed and plan to eat him if the night-light ever burns out). The Washington Examiner’s Byron York lays out how pointless this is:
The first action Reid has scheduled for next week is a cloture vote on whether to even begin considering the amendment. Republicans could filibuster the measure, which would stop it and allow the Senate to move on to move meaningful matters. But that would allow Democrats to accuse the GOP of obstructionism. So Republicans will likely allow the amendment to go forward.
A long debate will then ensue in which Democrats denounce the Kochs and “corporate money” and Republicans argue the amendment would abridge First Amendment rights. After an extended back-and-forth, there will be another vote, this time on whether to end debate. Again, Republicans don’t need to use the filibuster to stop the measure, because they know it will fail in the final vote.
After more pointless debate, there will be yet another vote to move toward a final vote on the matter. If the amendment goes on to that final vote, and even if all 55 Democrats ultimately support it, it will fall a dozen votes short of passage.
My advice to Senate Republicans? Don’t play the game. I am no expert in Senate arcana, but surely there is a way to speed up the process. At the very least, skip the debates. Have one GOP Senator stand up, say point-blank I speak for my entire caucus when I say that we will not vote for any measure that limits the First Amendment in this fashion, then have the GOP Seante caucus go out for BBQ and ice cream. If a media person gives them grief, have each Senator say I am in favor of freedom of speech. I am waiting for Harry Reid to schedule a vote. Next question? until the media gives up.
I know that this sounds like it gives the Democrats a chance to waste even more time on this, and it probably will – but let’s face it: the voting public has yet to particularly get upset about the Citizens United case, and they aren’t about to flip a switch and start caring in the next sixty days. Letting it become blatantly obvious that Harry Reid and the rest are trying to run out the clock will not harm the GOP in the long term. Indeed, it will pay dividends. Because fulminating about Citizens United and/or Charles and David Koch is not actually at the top of the Democratic faithful’s wish list right now, either. And I do so enjoy the idea that privately the Left will fume over this empty gesture being given precedence over concrete policy positions*…
Via
Harry Reid’s anti-Koch crusade eats up precious Senate time http://t.co/cpBkdYn9sm via @DCExaminer
— Charles Sykes (@SykesCharlie) September 2, 2014
Moe Lane
*Never forget: many progressives actually do believe that their policy positions are popular, if only they were ever given a chance to run on and openly defend them. The thought that only a single-digit percentage of the politicians in their party agree with them on that issue is carefully… never thought, apparently.
As far as I’m concerned, the more time Congress spends in deadlock or useless debate is less time spent infringing upon our freedoms.
I like the idea of endless inane statements by Democrats about why Free Speech is bad. Yhere should be some good quotes there come time to create campaign ads.
Not a bad strategy, Moe. Just to clarify, I think that the Republicans should vote for cloture and allow the final vote just to make the senators go on the record. The odds of the amendment getting the votes of 2/3rds of the senate is nil. Given the mid-terms, I doubt if Old Harry will get 50 votes.
I must have missed this post, because frankly you are playing into Reid’s game. You have not spent the time READING the Senate rule book. Let me spell this out for you Moe:
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Reid has to schedule jack $&#$. Now that the debate is open, there’s no running clock on the next vote. Reid can wait until the week of the election and use it as an “October Surprise” tactic of ginning up the base.
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Think McFly! Think! Killing the bill now would have caused a stir for all of five minutes! Now we are going to have to deal with this until the election!
In order:
Reid is not a supernatural creature. He is perfectly capable of messing up. He has been doing so more often.
This is a cloture vote; I would dearly love to see Reid stretch it out until the election.
And I react very, very badly to attempts to Biff Tanner me.