The following Democrats voted for the Keystone XL pipeline:
Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska
Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware
Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania
Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana
Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota
Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia
Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri
Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas
Sen. Jon Tester of Montana
Sen. John Walsh of Montana
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia
The advocates of the pipeline needed fifteen votes and they only got fourteen. The most surprising ‘no’ vote was from Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota. He and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia voted no despite representing energy-rich states. But they were retiring and not seeking lucrative post-government careers. I suppose Kay Hagan and Mark Pryor expect higher paying jobs, and I am sure they will get them.
On the NSA vote, only Bill Nelson among Democrats voted against cloture. The following Republicans crossed over to cast a vote that made a lot of the Intelligence Community very unhappy:
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas
Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
The Keystone bill failed with fifty-nine votes and the NSA bill failed with fifty-eight.
Whatever you think about these two bills, the most appropriate thing for this Congress to do was to filibuster them both and accomplish nothing.
Why change now?
