Recapping yesterday's action:
The House handled its suspension bills without incident yesterday, which is perhaps more than I expected. But they fumbled the continuing appropriations bill, which went down by a vote of
195-230, with 48 Republican nays. News outlets
like ABC reported that, "the surprise 230-195 defeat came at the hands of Democrats and tea party Republicans." But I'll note (
again) for the record that there are 60 members of the House Tea Party Caucus, the gang Michele Bachmann claims to lead under that banner. Fewer than half of that number actually voted nay yesterday. Just 25 did. Which means that just barely more than half of the nay votes from Republicans came from members who identify themselves openly with Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus, and that 56% of the Tea Party Caucus actually voted for it. Bachmann herself, of course, was nowhere to be found and missed the vote entirely. In fact, Bachmann hasn't cast a vote since August 1st, and has missed the last 29 roll calls in the House.
The Senate spent its day considering and rejected a handful of amendments to the trade bill. All of which, by the way, were offered by Republicans and were subject to "painless filibusters" requiring 60 votes for passage. So there is at least unanimous agreement that the work of filibustering amendments is too annoying for anyone to have to do, Democrat or Republican.
Looking ahead to today:
The House moves on to H.R. 2401, the" Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act." BANANAS Alert Level: 7. Also of note is the upcoming consideration of H. Res. 409, a rule waiving clause 6(a) of Rule XIII, which requires a 2/3 vote to consider a rule on the same day it is reported from the Rules Committee. The Republican leadership may need this in place in order to be able to move the continuing appropriations bill again on short notice. But what's interesting about their use of this particular trick is that it's a procedure they used to call imposing "Martial Law" when Democrats did it.
The Senate appears to have ironed out a schedule under which they'll complete work on the trade bill and its amendments today, and clear the decks for receiving the continuing appropriations bill, whenever that might come through from the House.
Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.
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