You might have noticed something bizarre in the Senate this week. Republicans did not filibuster the initial votes on
the Citizens United amendment or the
Paycheck Fairness Act. They actually allowed the Senate to go forward on debating these bills. Is it a miracle? Is Mitch McConnell realizing that filibustering these really popular bills makes Republicans look bad, just months before the election?
No. Of course not. It's just one more tactic to slow the Senate down by eating up more floor time and to try to derail other votes that could be politically damaging for them.
"If it's not pay equity, it's going to be something else," said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the chamber's top GOP messaging man. "We realize the next couple of weeks are going to be a bust around here and we want to get to the important business, which is [government funding], and we’ll get to that faster hopefully."
A Senate Republican, granted anonymity to describe party strategy, said that the vote was mostly about disrupting Democrats' carefully plotted returns to previously failed votes.
"We can spend some time talking about it and that might make it less likely for them to bring up other things. If we block it, we end debate. If we continue the discussion, they've got to burn up considerable time," the Republican said. "But in the end, we will not vote for" the legislation.
So, women of America, 21 Republicans
voted for debate on the Paycheck Fairness bill just to fuck up the Democrats' agenda. That's after that
insulting Labor Day tweet from them, saying they support equal pay. And dark money in politics? Yeah,
they don't care about that, either.