Senate Legislation Blocked Constantly By Obscure Political Maneuvers

[babylonsister]

Political Maneuvers Delay Bill After Bill in Senate

During debate on a climate change bill this month, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, left, required that the 492-page bill be read aloud. He called the move payback for the failure of Majority Leader Harry M. Reid to act on President Bush's judicial nominees.
(Alex Wong - Getty Images)

By Lori Montgomery and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 28, 2008; Page A01



The Senate went home yesterday for the Fourth of July holiday to face voters, having failed repeatedly to address critical economic issues from skyrocketing gas prices to climate change to the nation's housing crisis.

Leaders in both parties have vowed to tackle those problems. Yet the Senate has been unable to move forward even when there is broad agreement about what to do.

Take the housing rescue bill that collapsed this week: On a test vote, 83 senators supported provisions intended to halt the steepest slide in home prices in a generation. Still, the measure stalled, undone by a dispute over whether to add tax breaks for renewable energy production, an idea supported by 88 senators.

Lawmakers, lobbyists and independent analysts say that bill and other major legislation have been derailed by political maneuvering for an election likely to consolidate Democratic control over Congress and in which the sputtering economy tops the agenda. With each side using the Senate's byzantine rules to gain advantage, work in the upper chamber, always balky, has ground to a halt.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/27/AR2008062703409.html?hpid=topnews

[Stellen]

1. These damn fools having a high old time at their private party

while the country goes down in flames. What a stellar crowd.