In a move that I wanted all along, the Dems have finally started to think. I kept asking why in the hell 60 votes were needed to pass this reform? You only need 60 to stop debate. Now an article from Huffingtonpost has Bernie Sanders (no wonder I like this socialist so much) pushing for vote cloture.
Buoyed by news of a temporary replacement for the late Senator Ted Kennedy, Senate Democratic leaders are launching a renewed effort to get all 60 members of their caucus -- even those who might eventually vote against health care legislation -- to at least commit to blocking a Republican filibuster.
After that, the bill itself could win passage with only a simple majority.
Bottom Line, if they cant do this, then they cant run this Country.
More of the article below........
My thing is (and has been from the start), we have to be able to get every Democrat to vote for cloture. Even if you dont vote for the Bill, vote for cloture for goodness sake. There should not be a Dem member of the Senate who doesn't vote for cloture. It's the same reason I think Obama's nominees shouldn't be able to get filibustered. There should be a website dedicated to putting Dems who allow filibusters to be put on blast. Here's more....
As former DNC Chair Howard Dean summarized: "If you are a member of the Democratic Party you have an obligation... to vote with the party on procedural issue. I would expect that regardless of what Senators think they about the public option, they should be there for cloture."
All of this is from the article, it was a hell of a read.
On the Hill, Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-VT) has been one of the chief proponents of the commit-to-cloture strategy. And increasingly, senior aides say, he is getting the backing of the party's leadership.
"I think there is growing support for the understanding that if, for whatever reason, some of the conservative members of the caucus choose not to support a public option or vote for final passage that is fine," said Sanders. "We can live with that. What we do need is a united caucus to say to the republicans and say, 'sorry you are not going to sidetrack health care reform and we are going to go forward.'"
"You will have 50 votes for a strong public option" if we get there, Sanders added. "I do believe that."
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...