Keep the Senate in Session 24/7 Until the Recovery Bill Is Passed

[Better Believe It]

Do DU'ers think that is a good idea? That might force some positive action today.

I'd like to hear the negatives and positives on this proposal. I don't have position on this, just thinking about it.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Excellent! No weekends at home, no going home at night, etc. nt

[WI_DEM]

2. Yes, but will Reid think of doing something like this? Probably not--he'd worry that it might

be too tough for the republicans.

[Barack_America]

3. Better yet, just bring the damn thing to a cloture vote...

...and then let the Republicans spend their weekend reading the phonebook on the Senate floor.

[onenote]

6. cloture yes, reading phonebook -- not going to happen

You're absolutely right that a vote on cloture should be forced asap if the repubs won't grant unanimous consent to ending debate (which is the alternative).

But you may not understand how the old "traditional" filibuster works. In order for that to happen, 50 of the Democrats would have to stick around on the floor 24/7 in order for their to be a quorum. If they did that, the repubs could hold the floor, and presumably they wouldn't resort to reading the phone book. Rather, they'd probably just read sections of the stimulus bill (its a big bill) and discuss them ad nauseum, focusing on examples of provisions that they can twist into sounding like they don't belong in a jobs creation bill. The Democrats would be unable to respond to what the repubs say because (a) if they don't have 50 senators present there isn't a quorum and everybody can go home and take the weekend off and (b) the senators sitting there listen to the repubs ramble on don't get to speak since the repubs are holding the floor. If a repub stops speaking, then a Democrat can be recognized and can speak as long as he/she wants, although that would sort of buy into the filibuster. And when that Democrat is finished, another repub could ask to be recognized and they could go on for as long as they want.

There is a reason that the old fashioned filibuster died out -- it almost always was successful because it put more pressure to compromise on those opposing the filibuster than on those conducting it.

[DCBob]

4. There will be vote tonight.. They know they cannot afford to let a weekend go by.

Things can happen and arms can be twisted.

[JeffreyWilliamson]

5. I thought Harry said they would work all night last night if that's what it took...

Which must have meant 8:30pm since that's when he let them go home.

[DCBob]

7. Apparenty Collins got cold feet last night.. I think that's why Harry gave it up.

Hopefully tonight will be a better result.