Posted on 02/11/2009 3:07:40 PM PST by rednek
I just got off the phone with my congresswoman - Mary Fallin's office. I asked how many bodies in the house to constitute a quorum for the stimulus vote. After 15 minutes on hold, they gave me the answer - 3/5 or 2/3 - not sure which. Either way, there are enough republicans to block a vote - by simply walking out and demanding a quorum call call on the way out the door. 173 Reublicans = 39.7% - add a couple of Blue dog dems to it.....and it works. Only flippin' chance we have. Shut the congress down. Burn the phones down - call your Congressman and demand action...........red
On the Senate side, there are two separate motions required to pass a bill. One is a motion to proceed, the other is a motion to pass the bill. Normally, both are debatable. However, on a Conference Report, the motion to proceed is not debatable and consequently it’s just a straight majority vote. The motion on final passage is debatable, and it takes 60 votes to shut off the debate.
The Senate rule you cited covers those circumstances where someone attempts to introduce into the Conference Report an item that the Committee didn’t agree on. It also includes a fairly recent rules amendment that requires the final report to be posted for public review for 48 hours before passage. The majority in both houses have indicated they intend to ignore that rule... well, not really “ignore”, but vote not to comply with it.
Thanks Ernest and TSoA.
Thanks for the ping.
Republicans: Permanent Minority!
Thanks for the ping!
tahnks.
Contact the traitors - Specter, Collins, Snowe. Use an address in their state. This is war.
Well said.
They can’t block the bill, because 3 of the republicans are supporting the bill. No point in saying they would block the bill if they know they will lose the filibuster vote.
The only hope was if the house/senate conference put something back in the bill that turned one of the three republicans against it. That didn’t happen, because those three republicans were looking for a reason to vote yes.
Collins is even touting the bill has a great day for our country.
Michael Steele doesn’t have a vote in the Senate. He can oppose the bill, and most republicans will still vote against the bill, but McConnell can’t block the vote if he doesn’t have enough republicans who will vote with him to block the vote.
If Stevens were in the Senate, we’d have blocked the vote. If we hadn’t lost seats in Virginia, and New Mexico we’d have blocked the vote. But we did lose seats, lots of seats, and we no longer have the ability to block votes.
Yes, you still can filibuster, but the 3 republicans who voted for the bill are going to do it again, so there are still 60 votes. The only thing we could do is force a cloture vote and delay the bill for 2 days.
There are NO STATES in the union that dictate which candidate you have to vote for in the General Election.
You may have trouble rejoining the “republican party”, but who cares?
Your premise is based upon the assumption that Reps actually want to stop the bill. Very little evidence of that.
I will continue to believe that this happened because of ineffective status quo Republican leadership, both in the Senate and in the party at large.
At a time when "change" is called for in the Republican party, there is none except a new name and a new face at the RNC.
My experience with a quorum is the number of people present at a voting event equals the quorum...May have a thousand members but if only 3 show up to vote, that’s called a quorumm...And the vote would be valid...
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