Blame Rand Paul

Created
Tue, 13/02/2024 - 04:00
Updated
Tue, 13/02/2024 - 04:00
He and the rest of the MAGA weirdos are making the Senate work around the clock because they’re having a tantrum. From @SenWhitehouse on Sunday night,here’s an explanation for the weekend activities in the Senate: If you’re sitting around wondering what is happening in the Senate, (a) you need to get a life, and (b) here’s a handy-dandy overview.  We begin with the rule that spending measures have to originate in the House, so to start a bill like our Ukraine funding measure in the Senate you need to bring a House-passed measure to the Senate Floor. The first step is to proceed to that House-passed measure.  A group of Republicans objects to all this, so the Majority Leader had to file cloture on that motion to proceed to the House-passed measure, requiring 60 votes.   Getting cloture on that motion was our first vote, 67-32.  Cloture rules require thirty hours of post-cloture debate, so that debate took place, and then after that came the actual vote to proceed, which only required a simple majority, cloture having been invoked.  That passed on Friday 64-19.  But the bill we moved to is not the one we want to pass, so we had to substitute in the text that we wanted.  That too required cloture (filed Friday), which requires an “intervening day” (yesterday) before the vote, as well as the thirty hours after. That second cloture is what we voted on today, 67-27.  In the meantime, one Senator today tried to send the…