Not having Al Franken in the Senate just caused a whole lot of wasted time, as Harry Reid fell one vote short of being able to pass last year’s omnibus spending bill. Russ Feingold didn’t support it because he doesn’t like omnibus bills where ‘everything is just thrown in there together’. Evan Bayh didn’t support it because of increased spending. Bob Menendez didn’t support it because it has language that relaxes our relations with Cuba. The end result was that Reid could only muster 59 votes and has to pass another continuing resolution to keep the government from shutting down.
Now, I could make fun of Reid for not being able to count, but it is surprising that Feingold would cause this much extra work just because he doesn’t like how the process played out. This bill took the form of an omnibus because Bush threatened to veto all the individual spending bills last fall. Feingold knows that, so why is he playing games?
It’s annoying because the Senate had to pass the omnibus without any changes so that it matched the House version. Knowing this, the Republicans offered a bunch of stupid amendments that would be uncomfortable to vote against. After the Dems took all those difficult votes, then they fail to pass it anyway. I wish Menendez would relax about our relations with Cuba, and I wish Bayh would stop grandstanding. I wish Feingold had spared us this embarrassment. But it all would have worked out anyway if Norm Coleman would just accept defeat.
