Obamacare tactics so nice, we had to try them twice

I assume everyone's already heard about Schumer's legislative ploy to get around the Senate filibuster on the Federalize Voting Fraud bill. The Senate passed a benign bill addressing the need to renew some leasing powers of NASA, which then went to the House, which stripped out ever word and filled the empty vessel with an unholy mixture of two pending "Enable All the Election Fraud" bills that have been floating around for the last year without getting enough support to pass. The House plans to pass this Trojan Horse with its slim majority, which I take it is feasible, and send it back to the Senate for final approval. The idea is that the filibuster doesn't apply in this situation, perhaps because it's supposed to be done under reconciliation rules? Even though it's clearly not a spending bill?

I'm a little lost, but here's what Neo has to say about it, and she tends to get this stuff right: the NASA empty-suit-filled-with-election-fraud-goodness scam bypasses only the need for 60 votes to bring the bill to the floor for debate, not the 60 votes needed actually to pass it. Whether Manchin would vote against bringing it to the floor for a vote—thus denying it even the 51-vote majority I guess is required for that purpose—I don’t know. He might be willing to have it debated even if he would refuse to vote for it on the merits in the end.

As for Manchin's vote on the merits, the word is that he initially supported a bill to make it more difficult for state legislatures to block Electoral College certifications, a measure that enjoys some bipartisan support.  Nevertheless, he does not at all support the measures like outlawing voter i.d.'s, legalizing ballot-harvesting, etc., that Schumer deems necessary to preserve democracy as we know it. If Neo is correct that in the end Fraudulus could not pass without 60 votes, I'm relieved. I'd rather not worry so much about Mr. Manchin's principles.

1 comment:

E Hines said...

As I understand it, Reid got around the filibuster and the requirement for a 2/3 Senate vote to change a rule by arranging for a vote on [a confirmation?], and on losing, arranged for an appeal to the chair for a waiver of the rule, the chair made a pro forma ruling upholding the rule, and it only took a majority vote to overrule the chair.

Schumer may be planning something similar here.

Eric Hines