March 9, 2007: Senators Must Reach Deals on Amendments to Clear 9/11 Commission Package

[10:45]
Quorum call for the last half hour or so.  There will be no more votes today.  None Monday either.  Votes pick up on Tuesday when the Dem leadership, and the managers of the bill, hope to vote on the remaining germane amendments.  The non-controversial amendments are still held up by one or two senators who cannot get their amendments voted on and are trying to hold out.  There are about thirty amendments set to be approved by unanimous consent/voice vote, as soon as those hold-out senators give up or give in.  It's unclear who or what will come to the floor for the remaining part of the day.


[9:53]
Now a second cloture vote, this time on the Reid substitute, which is essentially the underlying bill itself.  An "aye" vote is a vote to proceed with the legislation, limiting further debate.

Cloture is met, 69 yea votes.


[9:50]
The Senate is voting for cloture on a Cornyn Amendment to the underlying bill.  It sounds mostly party-line, except Bayh (IN) voted for cloture.  Otherwise, Dems are voting no, which is a vote against limiting debate on the amendment.  The Dem leadership probably granted this amendment a vote as part of a package deal.  Cloture will not pass for this amendment; more votes to follow.

46 yea, 49 nay, motion not agreed to.


(P)review:
The Senate starts early today, 9:15 e.s.t.  It will work to clear remaining amendments to S.4, the September 11th Commission Recommendations Bill.  There will be one package of non-controversial amendments that will be offered and passed by voice vote.  Then there will be a group of controversial amendments that will be put to a roll-call vote.  However, senators whose amendment(s) don't show up on one list or the other can block the non-controversial package from being passed (the request to consider them is done by unanimous consent).  This appeared to be what held up progress on the bill in the Senate yesterday.

Then there's Iraq.  Yesterday, Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) agreed to let a Gregg Amendment concerning funding for military missions come to a vote along with a bevy of other Iraq resolutions/bills.  Republicans have been blocking Democrat efforts to debate Iraq in the Senate based on Democratic refusal to allow this Gregg Amendment to come to a vote.  But when Reid conceded yesterday, the Republicans still objected to what Reid was offering.

That said, some things have changed since the Senate last tried to reach a deal on debating Iraq.  It appears that Democratic leaders in the House and Senate will now attempt to attach binding conditional language to the War Supplemental funding package that is scheduled to move through the Capital in a few weeks.  This language sets an August 2008 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, albeit with several exceptions built in.  Most likely, with this binding language looming, Republican leaders would rather put off the entire debate until this binding language is considered in the context of Supplemental Funding debate.