Jim Bunning is continuing to filibuster legislation that would extend unemployment and COBRA benefits for 1.2 million people. The filibuster has now gone to 11:
Sen. Durbin asked for unanimous consent for the 11th time to extend unemployment benefits. #Bunning objected
Additionally, Senator Jon Kyl is now helping Bunning keep the filibuster going. On Saturday, David Dayen reported that Senators Corker and Sessions were also assisting Bunning.
In addition to ending unemployment and COBRA benefits for 1.2 million Americans, this filibuster has also resulted in "a 21 percent fee reduction to doctors seeing Medicare patients starting today."
Politically speaking, Bunning is not going to be hurt by this, as he is leaving the Senate. Further, Republicans, even the ones assisting Bunning, are not going to be hurt by this either, because no one friggin' understands Senate procedure.
Democrats are in charge, and so they are going to be hurt by this. Let me pull out my flow chart again:
As this continues, worries about the appearance of hypocrisy or the need for a "deliberative" legislative body ring increasingly hollow. A lot of people are getting really hurt by Senate procedure.
Update--more specifics on the damage being caused: The White House emails more specifics on the damage this filibuster is causing:
If Emergency Unemployment Compensation and full federal funding for the Extended Benefit program are not extended, 400,000 Americans will lose unemployment benefits during the first weeks in March. By May, nearly 3 million people could be left without these benefits.(...)
If the extension is not approved, an estimated 500,000 workers who lose their jobs will be ineligible for subsidies to cover the cost of health care over this month. Over the rest of 2010, an estimated 5 million workers will be ineligible for the Recovery Act COBRA subsidy that covers 65 percent of the cost of coverage. Without this assistance, many of these families will be forced to join the ranks of the uninsured.
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