Need Senate procedural help in parsing Nelson's statement on Detainee vote

[Pacifist Patriot]

I began by asking the bored nervous intern why Senator Nelson would vote with the Republicans to suspend habeas corpus, give the President power to interpret the Geneva Conventions and expand the definition of enemy combatants to include people who have purposefully and materially supported hostilities when every Republican in Washington is railing on the Democrats and screaming that anyone who disagrees with the president is supporting terrorists and "the enemy."

"Are you talking about the Detainee Bill?"

<No Sherlock, I'm talking about Mark Foley. Of COURSE I'm talking about the detainee bill.>

He tells me the Senator has a statement about that and then rambles virtually incoherently about McCain, Congress and blah, blah, blah. The part I did catch was that Nelson voted in favor of the Specter bill, (I gather that would have mitigated some of this disasterous legislation?), but that did not pass.

My question. Would the Specter amendment have come up for a vote BEFORE or AFTER the body of the detainee bill? Could Nelson have voted in favor of the Detainee bill in some sort of delusional hopeful state that Specter's amendment would later pass?

I really hope another Floridian calls his office and asks for Nelson's statement. Maybe you'll get an intern that can speak clearly over a telephone.

Thanks!

[sinkingfeeling]

1. The votes on amendments to the 'detainee bill' were all defeated prior

to the main vote.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. So my instincts are correct? I got handed a load of bullshit.

If the amendments he'd favored had failed, he still could have voted against the Detainee Bill instead of for it.

I'm beyond furious! How many times have I mentioned he's the only Democrat I've got representing me from the City Council all the way up to the President? Oh wait, our county tax collector is a democrat. That's it!

[Hav]

2. .

He voted for the Specter Amendment and after I think 3 other Amendments that failed (he voted for them as well), he voted for this detainee bill.

[Armstead]

3. It was a charade -- better thanb nothing but...

If the Senate were working as it should work, the original bill would have been subject to negotiation and compromise that addressed the concerns of Democrats (and the Constitution and common decency).

This would have included serious consideration of amendments and demands of Democrats, so that a truly bi-partisan bill would have been voted on.

However,as has become the practice, the GOP doesn;t allow any actual concensus or comprimise. Instead they force through obnoxious legislation on an "all or nothing" basis, knowing the Democrats have no power to alter the outcome.

In this case, the GOP and Democrats merely allowed a symbolic kabuki dance, in which Democrats proposed amendments and vented, while the GOP refused to include them, and instead rammed through what they wanted with no such actual compromise.

The Democratic opposition was better than nothing. But the whole episode shows how rotten Washington has become.

[bullimiami]

5. i dont care. there is NO excuse. NONE. he can go straight

to hell with the rest of them.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. Summed up my feelings nicely.