Senate To Vote Today At 5 P.M. To Nix Withdrawal Timetable

[babylonsister]

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/mar/27/senate_to_vote_today_at_5_p_m_to_nix_withdrawal_timetable

Election Central
Senate To Vote Today At 5 P.M. To Nix Withdrawal Timetable
By Greg Sargent | bio

Time to pay attention to what's going on in the Senate: Today that august legislative body is going to be voting on an amendment to strike the withdrawal timetable from the Senate's Iraq war funding legislation.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, just confirmed to me that the vote is set for 5:00 P.M. today. One Republican after another has paraded before the Senate throughout the afternoon, many arguing that keeping the withdrawal timetable in the legislation would be embracing failure, selling out the troops, or worse.

The amendment is the work of GOP Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi. Even if the amendment doesn't pass, however, GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell may allow the vote to go through -- rather than using procedural tricks to block it, as he has in the past -- in which case the overall bill if it passed would proceed to the President's desk, where it would meet with a veto.

This is a long, slow, grinding process in which every incremental development matters. The fate of the amendment is still uncertain, so stay with us for the vote.

[iconoclastic cat]

1. Uh, anything we can do? nt

[Thrill]

2. How many Dems wil vote for it?

.

[Rusty MacHenry]

3. Minus LIEberman, probally none of them

The Democrats are pretty united behind this bill.

[flpoljunkie]

4. Gordon Smith, R-OR, just voted No.

[Nite Owl]

5. Anyone listening?

Lieberman is so far the only going along with this. Salazar, Ben Nelson, Smith were no's with the dems from what I heard.

[endarkenment]

6. It had better get voted down. nt.

[flpoljunkie]

7. Senator Chuck Hagel, R-NE, votes No.

[Nite Owl]

8. Pryor was an aye.

[Thrill]

10. 50 no 48 yes

Dems win

[Nite Owl]

9. 48/50

nays have it.

[flpoljunkie]

12. Cochran amendment fails. The timetable will not be stripped from the bill.

[Babel_17]

11. Seems like the amendment failed

48 - 50

[babylonsister]

13. Reid sounds fairly upbeat; pondering where to go next. nt