Daschle is "uncommitted" to a filibuster and says the votes aren't there to sustain it.
Well, the House just passed this stinkbomb in large part because the House GOP leadership cheated and turned a 15 minute vote into a three-hour arm-twisting marathon.
The Republican leadership has shown they will take extreme measures and "burn the clock" to ram this through. Shouldn't we expect our Senate Democrats to take the same initiative on a bill which will ultimately harm our nation's seniors?
Cross-posted from the YellowDogBlog.com --
While America slept last night, the House Republican leadership bended the rules of the House (written by Thomas Jefferson) to the breaking point in order to pass H.R. 1, the Republican-backed Medicare prescription drug "benefit".
At about 2 a.m. Texas time, the House proceeded to vote on approval of the bill -- a vote the acting speaker said would last fifteen minutes. The vote was taken and after the scheduled fifteen minutes passed, the "Nays" were more than a few votes ahead, with 25 Republicans and all but 12 Democrats opposing the special-interest legislation.
Unsatisfied with the result, the acting speaker simply refused to gavel the vote to a close. After three hours of waiting, the speaker announced that several Republicans had changed their vote (including, apparently Texas Republican John Culberson) to "Aye" after serious arm-twisting from Republican leaders.
It's easy to see why the GOP is desperate to get this bill passed -- it is a major part of President Bush's agenda of selling the government to his campaign contributors, and the failure by the President's staunchest congressional allies to deliver would be a major slight.
But in any case, after the long wait (and what may be the longest vote in the history of the House of Representatives), the leadership had intimidated their colleagues into falling in line.
Needless to say, Democrats were not pleased. Reps. Barney Frank (Mass.) and Steny Hoyer (Md.) lashed out. Frank called the vote a "game", and Hoyer accused Republicans of destroying the democratic process.
Coming on the heels of an already abusive process (the conference committee-compromise bill itself was not even available to House members until early Friday morning), opponents of the bill have been kicked around one too many times.
This is a travesty! Give Congress a piece of your mind by calling the Congressional switchboard at 1-800-962-3524 and filing a complaint with either your congressperson, Speaker Hastert, or perhaps the House Rules Committee. Tell them that accurate time-keeping ought to be a non-partisan issue.