On top of, and in response to, the newly formed Senate Progressive Bloc forcing the Democratic leadership to include a strong public option in health care reform legislation, Senate leaders Harry Reid and Dick Durbin are now pressing all Senate Democrats to stick together on "procedural votes." That is, the Senate Democratic leadership is now telling conservative Senate Democrats to not join with Republican filibusters, especially on health care. Doing so would mean Democrats only need 50 votes to pass legislation:
Majority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) said Tuesday that he and Senate Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) will be asking the 60-member Democratic caucus to "stick together" on procedural votes that would allow the chamber to begin or end debate on legislation. Sixty votes are needed to close debate, or invoke cloture, on a measure and avoid a filibuster.
The message to Democrats, Durbin said, is: "Don't let the Republicans filibuster us into failure. We want to succeed, and to succeed we need to stick together."(...)
"They may vote against final passage on a bill. They may vote with Republicans on amendments," he said. "But on this idea of allowing the filibuster to stop the whole Senate, I think, we have persuaded them more often than not that they shouldn't let the Republicans control our agenda. We ought to control our own agenda."(...)
Reid and Durbin placed a special importance on the looming health care debate; the Majority Leader is hoping to bring a bill to the floor by July 20.
"Believe me, this is not a binding rule in the caucus," Durbin said. "It's just a plea to our Members that if we're going to face an historic vote on health care reform, we're urging Democratic caucus members to support us on the procedural issues."
Good. This is reiterating another point the progressive netroots have made for some time. Democrats don't need 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate. Instead, only 50 votes plus Biden are required to pass legislation, while 60 votes are required to bring a bill to a vote. Now that we have 60 votes in the Senate, conservative Senate Democrats need to allow all Democratic bills to come to a vote.
"Most Senators vote their conscience and they do what they think is right. They didn't come here to be told what to do by somebody else," moderate Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.) said.
Oh really? In light of this, I now expect all of these conscience-voting Democrats do stop attending all Democratic caucus meetings, cancel all appointments with lobbyists, and shut down all constituent contact services. Otherwise, one might think that Senators are taking the opinions of other people into account when they vote, rather than just voting their conscience.
Later on in the same interview, Evan Bayh clarifies what he meant by voting according to your conscience. The actual meaning is to vote based on fear of Republican attacks (emphasis mine):
"You know how this place operates. Very often, it's the procedural votes that determine the substantive outcome. Sometimes not, but it's not uncommon that that is the case. So those votes on procedural issues will be cast as if they are the ultimate substantive vote," he said.
Who will cast the procedural votes as the ultimate substantive vote? Will it be the conscience of an individual Senator? That hardly seems likely. What seems far more likely is that Bayh is worried some Democrats will face Republican attacks that spin the procedural vote as the ultimate substantive vote.
So, there you have it from the leader of the conservodems: our conscience is formed largely by potential Republican spin in attack ads.
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