After a strong push by Senate leadership and by President Obama himself to set up the DISCLOSE Act cloture vote today, the measure looks likely to fail, at least in a first round of voting today.
That's largely because Sen. Joe Lieberman won't be there.
Senate Democrats will be one vote down when they consider sweeping campaign finance disclosure legislation this afternoon as Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn) has told party leadership he will miss the vote to attend a friend's funeral.
The senator's absence reduces the caucus's numbers from 59 to 58 voting members, all but assuring that the DISCLOSE Act won't pass when it comes up for a cloture vote Tuesday afternoon. The legislation's authors were already having difficulty finding a 60th vote to break a likely Republican filibuster. Without Lieberman, they will need two Republicans to cross party lines as opposed to one. Already two of the three most likely defectors -- Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) -- have said they will oppose the measure.
All of the Democrats, including Ben Nelson, have committed to voting yes on the bill. Lieberman is a likely yes, which makes, you guessed it, Olympia Snowe the deciding vote. Presuming that Lieberman would vote yes, swinging Snowe over gives the Dems the chance to bring the vote back up for consideration in the future. Sargent has more:
Snowe, who is up for reelection in two years and is expected to face blowback if she votes No, can in fact vote Yes today. Because of Lieberman's absence, she would not be ensuring that it would pass, sparing her the wrath of Mitch McConnell, who is trying to keep the GOP caucus united against it.
But: A senior Dem Senate aide tells me that if Snowe does this, the measure could be brought up for a vote again when Lieberman is present, putting pressure on her to maintain her Yes vote. So again, as long as the odds are, this could still end up passing.
It's an important vote. Dems are going into this vote with the intention of defining the Republicans. That puts Snowe in a tough position, but she also needs to be looking ahead to her own reelection campaign in two years, when she's fully expecting a hard primary run at her from the right. Having this law in place could actually help her then.
Update: CQ is reporting that Snowe will join Republicans in filibustering the bill. Politico confirms that Lieberman will be a "yes" vote if Dems bring it back up. Now what to look for in the vote, which should start in about 20 minutes, is whether Reid votes yes or no. If he votes no, they'll bring it back up.