by Bill Kavanagh: Wonder why it’s so hard to pass effective legislation to combat the economic mess we’re in? Maybe the 60-vote Senate cloture rule is something more Americans would like to examine. Consider this— a growing number of Republican Senators are donating $2,000 to $10,000 apiece to the campaign coffers of one unseated colleague in an effort to keep his opponent from taking the 59th Democratic seat in the Senate. Why?
Well, think about how different the debate on a stimulus package would have been if only one Republican Senate vote had been needed—instead of three. If Senator Al Franken of Minnesota and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts had been voting, the Republican minority would have to be looking at each other and wondering, “Which one of you guys is going to roll on us and vote for an actual stimulus package with jobs?”
It would then only take one.
Meanwhile, the Republican Senators themselves are ponying up to keep Norm Coleman in court from now till they run out of election appeals in Minnesota, while the unemployment lines grow longer every day.
(See John Nichols' Nation article for an update.)
I sure the Republicans are spending a lot of money to try and keep Coleman in the senate--what's news worthy there. I'm almost as certain the Democrates are spending just as much and probably more to get Frankinstein in.
Posted by: Ron Russell | February 20, 2009 at 04:04 PM