Harry Reid has said that today, if the Republicans want to Filibuster the Reed-Levin troop redeployment bill when he calls for cloture, then he is prepared to make them go through with an actual filibuster (not the “we’re not going to have 60 votes so we’ll quit here” kind of filibuster, but a real ongoing debate that goes on for 30 hours). The Senate will go on all night and into tomorrow afternoon… just like the old days in the Senate that we see in the movies.
I think this is a pretty strong move. Reid is committed to getting an up-or-down vote (51 vote majority) on bringing the troops home… and he’s standing up, finally, to the Republicans. The action follows Rule XXII of the Senate and will keep debate open by all means. If debate is stopped by Republicans giving up, Reid puts in his up-or-down cloture vote on including the Reed-Levin amendment in the Defense Funding Bill. There are several Republicans who are co-signers of Reed-Levin, so this has the potential to start a real change in Congress.
I don’t know about you, but I have C-Span 2 all lined up on my computer to keep watch on what’s going on while I work.
Maybe Mitch MacConnell will read the Yellow Pages!
