Now this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you leak something.
As in, you tell somebody that there’s something in a particular bloc of testimony that’s important, only you can’t talk about it at all, so never mind. Because, of course, that always works to keep people uninterested.
Scare quotes, because it’s DC Kabuki Time! For those who are not ‘blessed’ enough to live within the Beltway – or downwind of it – this is that special time in the legislative calendar where federal politicians preserve the status quo by changing nothing at all and putting a big, red bow on the result. In this particular case, the scenario is as follows: for some strange reason, certain progressives want to make it easier for Republicans to repeal Obamacare by making the threshold for a cloture vote less than the current 60. Saner Democrats – which is to say, about a third to a half of the Senate Democratic caucus – don’t want this to happen, mostly because they can count, and they’re well aware of the minor detail that 2012 is shaping up nicely as a Senatorial bloodbath for their party. So, it’s time for a compromise!
This is what they came up with:
Under the emerging deal, senators would still be able to put a “hold” on nominations and legislation — and therefore prevent quick votes on them — but instead of remaining anonymous for several days as current rules allow, the name of a senator who employs a hold would be made public right away. Supporters of this reform believe that senators will be less likely to drag out a dispute if they need to defend it publicly.
When asked about this, Senator Tom Coburn – who is easily the Senator most likely to call for a hold, and who takes an innocent, care-free glee in maintaining that status – responded by showing Senate progressives the Hawaiian good-luck symbol, and then going off to deliver another baby, in flagrant violation of Senate work ethics laws*.
So I think that you can safely assume that this is not actually going to be, well, relevant. I won’t even go into the other two supposed provisions – reducing the number of nominees requiring confirmation, and banning reading the bills aloud – mostly because there’s no real confirmation that either ‘reform’ will be even adopted. Even if they are, the odds that anything would have changed was… low. Which could be seen as a pity: Democratic Senators worried about their reelection prospects stampede nicely.
Ach, well.
Moe Lane (crosspost) Continue reading Filibuster ‘reform’ near?
Huh. Did the Democrat lose a bet?
[UPDATE]: That ain’t rain, Glenn.
‘…but for NASA?’
Most interesting rumor from the Hill yesterday: Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) who announced his retirement from Congress has been promised the job of NASA administrator in exchange for his vote, and Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), another retiring Democrat, has been promised an appointment as U.S. Ambassador to NATO in exchange for his vote.
(Via Transterrestrial Musings, via Instapundit.) The man does realize that this simply means that he gets to be the one holding the knife when the Democrats kill the manned space program once and for all, yes?
Moe Lane
PS: This is not a threat.
This is a promise. And Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) doesn’t give a tinker’s dam whether you like it or not.
(H/T: Big Government) Senator Tom Coburn is living up to his nickname:
Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who developed a close friendship with President Obama when they served together in the Senate, is threatening to have the entire health care bill read on the Senate floor.
Senior Senate Democratic aides had heard Coburn was considering having potentially thousands of pages read aloud in effort to stall passage. “If he did this it would be even outrageous for a guy who’s become known as Dr. No around here,” one of them told POLITICO.
Good luck on getting Coburn to back down on this: we’re talking about a guy who has a hold on a veterans’ bill because it’s not addressing his concerns about cost duplication and discrimination. We’re also talking about a guy with an approval rating somewhere around 60 with his constituents – so that argument is out, too. Ed Morrissey thinks that this could delay the bill for up to half a year; I don’t expect it to go that far, but Coburn’s poised to be able to do one heck of a monkeywrenching job on the health care rationing bill for at least the rest of 2009…
Moe Lane
Crosssposted to RedState.
…to wit, providing fully justified grief to people who really deserve it. In this particular case he’s making the clock run out on a bill that had some disclosure provisions stripped from it; as has been noted before, there are many ways that an individual Senator can shut things down in the Senate, and Coburn is happy to explore them in the cause of transparency. The Democrats are of course mad at Coburn for it, because they can’t be mad at the President for making transparency such an important part of his campaign (if not his actual administration), and they can’t be mad at themselves for dumping out the provisions in the first place.
And why did they do it? The answer is classic Dizzy City:
The top House negotiator, Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., didn’t recall why his side insisted that the Senate drop the transparency provision. But a Democratic aide said later that there is concern that making every report public automatically might cause agencies to be less candid in their dealing with the Appropriations Committee. The aide required anonymity to speak candidly.
I swear, there’s something in the drinking water here.
(H/T: Instapundit)
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
