The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is voting on amendments to the Biden-Hagel non-binding resolution that expresses the sense of the Senate against escalating increasing the troop levels in Iraq. The most important amendment has been introduced by Sen. Dodd, who is running for President. Dodd’s amendment would cap the number of troops in Iraq at 130,000. It would not cut off funding. The amendment failed. Biden voted against all amendments, even some he agreed with, in an effort to get a ‘clean bill’. But several other Democrats voted against Dodd’s amendment, including all our new members. Those voting for it included: Dodd, Kerry, Feingold, Obama, Menendez, and Boxer. Bill Nelson, Ben Cardin, Bob Casey Jr., and Jim Webb voted against it.
All amendments to the non-binding resolution failed, but the resolution itself passed by a vote of 12-9. In other words, no Republican other than Hagel voted for it.
On Hagel’s recommendation, the word ‘escalating’ was changed to ‘increasing’. This may signal that some Republican Senators made that a condition of supporting the vote on the Senate floor.
The bill will compete with a similar resolution from John Warner, Susan Collins, and Ben Nelson. As Ben Nelson is explaining on MSNBC right now, the Foreign Relations bill failed to gain any bipartisan support. They are hoping to work something out that can gather more support.
The Warner-Nelson bill would distinguish between troop increases for Anbar Province and for Baghdad.
There appears to be support from approximately a dozen Republicans for one or the other of these resolutions. If that is the case then Mitch McConnell will have no success filibustering.
This is a pretty stunning response to the President a mere day after his State of the Union address.
One last note: John Kerry has announced that he will not seek the Democratic nomination in 2008.
Is the Warner-Nelson bill coming out of the Armed Services committee then? Has it already made it through?
Good for John Kerry. He made the right decision for himself, for the party, and for his constituents in Massachusetts. I wish him many more successful years in the Senate.
I think you are right to assume that it would come out of Armed Services. Carl Levin would be in charge of that and I don’t know if he would vote for it. I kind of doubt it, but with Nelson, they might not need Levin’s vote. It has not been raised yet.
How are you seeing that vote be split? Do you think that because its primary sponsor is Warner, most of the Republicans will vote for it, and that most of the Democrats will vote against it because they favor the Foreign Relations Committee bill?
Looking at the membership of the Armed Services committee, I am having a hard time envisioning Senators McCain and Lieberman voting to pass this.
Yeah, those are good questions. I’ll have to look into it because on the surface it doesn’t look like the Warner resolution could get out of the AS committee.
BUT…
The Warner resolution MAY get more support than we expect because they want to use it to prevent passage of the Biden resolution. They may vote it out of committee and then vote against it on the floor.
Shit, you’re right…even McCain and Lieberman could vote for it despite their public positions, and use the upperdown CYA.
Especially if the language and any amendments are more weakly worded than the Biden-Hagel resolution and could garner more Republican support in the full Senate.
Right.
Never underestimate Cheney’s ability to twist arms and move the Republicans to where he wants them to be.
And Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman are fully capable of being either witting or unwitting dupes in his machinations.
Curious why Webb voted against it. That seems surprising.
Joe Biden can go sit in a corner and blow himself.
Biden’s reason is that he negotiated the language with Hagel. He has an excuse.
I propose that Webb and Biden blow each other for their votes. Quid pro quo and all that.
i love it when BMT gets all frat-boy homoerotic.