Thursday, November 15, 2007: Senate is in gridlock, with farm bill, AMT fix, and transportation conference report all stalled

[19:13]
Reid has been speaking on the floor for about a half hour. He has been talking about Iraq, painting in the most bleak tones possible. It was his intro to introducing two Iraq bills to the Senate. One is a Feingold/Reed bill calling for a troop withdrawl. The second is the so-called "bridge" bill, the $50b Iraq supplementary spending bill that the House passed earlier this week. Reid says that the bill is not nearly tough enough for him (on Iraq policy) but that he would support it. Reid just introduced a cloture motion for the bill. This would allow a cloture vote on the $50b Iraq supplementary, which sets out timelines for troop withdrawals, as soon as the Tueday after senators return from the Thanksgiving recess (i.e. Nov. 27).

In closing Reid said that there would be a vote on the farm bill tomorrow morning. He says that his friends on the other side of the aisle are very close to bringing the bill down. If cloture is not invoked says Reid, it could be a long time before the Senate returns to consideration of the Farm Bill.

[18:13]
As for the farm bill, its floor manager Tom Harkin (IA) said today that new farm legislation might have to wait until after the 2008 elections to pass the Senate. Harkin suggested that if tomorrow's farm bill cloture vote fails — which is likely — the Senate should instead consider passing a one year extension of current farm legislation.

Republicans, many of whom support the farm bill, have nonetheless banded together in a protest filibuster in response to majority leader Reid's decision to shut down the amendment process on the bill.

[18:09]
Max Baucus (MT), chairman of the Finance Committee, laments the minority's objection to the AMT fix proposed by the majority. He wonders if it'll take the Senate until Christmas to pass an AMT fixer.

[18:01]
Reid just propounded a unanimous consent request (UC) to move to a vote on a bill enacting a 1-year AMT patch along with other measures extending certain tax cuts for two years. The UC also provided for votes on several amendments to the bill.

McConnell objects to this UC, stating that the Democrats' AMT fix is coupled with tax increases that the minority won't support.

Reid responds. We Democrats believe things must be paid for. Reid then objects to a minority UC. So no votes on an AMT fix just yet.

[17:57]
In news characteristic of action in the Senate this time of year, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations FY 2008 conference report has hit a snag in the Senate. According to Majority Leader Reid, there is a Republican senator objecting to the Senate holding a vote on the conference report.

The House has passed the conference report. It is unusual that a conference report hit a snag in this fashion, where one senator can prevent it from coming to a vote.

[15:44]
The Senate is in a quorum call.

Precap:

The Senate convenes at 9:30. Pending business is still technically the Farm Bill. Reid has scheduled a cloture vote on the farm bill for Friday. The Senate doesn't usually hold votes on Friday but the Senate's Thanksgiving recess is scheduled to begin at close of business Friday, meaning that today and tomorrow could be hectic.

It is unlikely that Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) can find sixty senators to vote for cloture on the bill. Although plenty of Republicans have voiced support for the bill, they appear to have banded together in a filibuster of the bill in response to Reid's decision to "fill the tree," a parliamentary tactic that shuts down the otherwise open amendment process.

To indicate just how strong the Republican bloc is, Byron Dorgan (ND) asked Reid not to subject the Dorgan/Grassley amendment on safety-net payment caps to a cloture vote at this time. Dorgan did not believe it could get 60 votes despite being co-sponsored by the Republican Grassley.

Reid filled the tree because he believed the amendment process on the bill would take too long. Republicans wanted to offer amendments on "non-germane" issues such as immigration and the estate tax. Fearing the bill would get bogged down in age-old partisan debate, Reid shut down the floor to amendments. Arguably, this move backfired.

As Sam Brownback (KS) noted yesterday, "We've been working on this bill for 10 days and we still haven't had one vote on it." In other words, maybe if we had started to go through these amendments ten days ago we'd be through them by now. Of course, it's hard to ask senators to vote on days that aren't in the middle of the week.

Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) discussed the impasse on the floor yesterday. They seemed to reach a tiny agreement that would allow each side to come up with a list of perhaps five amendments to be voted upon. Whether this agreement will be the end of the impasse is unclear. We'll find out today or tomorrow. The real test is with tomorrow's cloture vote.

In yesterday's eye-opening 95-0 vote reauthorizing the Head Start programs, the presidential candidates were all absent. That vote shows you how quickly Congress can move when there is broad support for a bill. The House passed the conference report early in the afternoon and the Senate was passing the same conference report within hours.

The Senate could start work on a bill to change housing laws in response to the subprime and foreclosure mess. The Senate also needs to pass a continuing budget resolution (CBR) to fund the government at current levels in lieu of FY 2008 budgets for each individual government agency. The current CBR expires at midnight Nov. 16.