The votes haven't yet been posted on the Senate website in regard to the cloture vote on the Senate Ethics Reform bill, however, one could guess that the GOP is trying one last inglorious effort to derail substantial ethics legislation. Below the jump: a brief summary of today's stall ball tactics and some observations about why this may be happening.
Cross posted at Desert Beacon
At issue is an amendment from New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg (R) proposing a line item veto for President Bush. The showdown on the Senate Floor this afternoon (and evening) was joined when Senator Mitch McConnell notified Senator Reid that there would not be enough votes for cloture unless Senator Gregg's amendment was brought up for an immediate vote.
Protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, this has every appearance of a Poison Pill insertion for three reasons: (1) Both the Senate Minority Leader Mr. McConnell and the amendment's sponsor Mr. Gregg admitted on the floor that the amendment was not germane to the bill. McConnell tried to argue that "non-germane amendments are as common as sunshine" -- an ironic reference if there ever was one; (2) Mr. Gregg admitted during the floor session that what he really wanted was to get his bill "to conference," an impossible demand on its face; and (3) Mr. Gregg's rejection of Mr. Reid's offer to take up the Gregg Proposal in full before the Easter recess.
A reasonable person could draw several conclusions from this sorry state of affairs. Perhaps it is that the Republicans never really wanted a strengthened ethics reform package in the first place, because if they did then the impossible demand that the Gregg amendment go to conference would not have been made, nor the compromise suggestions rejected. Perhaps Senator McConnell, the erstwhile co-sponsor of the Ethics Bill, lacks the clout in the Republican conference to derail the efforts of the ultra-conservative wing to add unpalatable amendments to important legislation.
No matter the rationale, Senate Republicans did nothing today to assuage the fears in the voting public that they are not the authors of that Culture of Corruption, nor the hand-maidens of corporate and special interest lobbyists.