Republicans filibuster their OWN bill!

Posted: Dec 6, 2012

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wanted to prove on Thursday that Democrats don’t have the votes to weaken Congress’ authority on the debt limit. Instead they called his bluff, and he ended up filibustering his own bill. The legislation, modeled on a proposal McConnell offered last year as a “last-choice option” to avert a U.S. debt default, would permit the president to unilaterally lift the debt ceiling unless Congress mustered a two-thirds majority to stop him. President Obama has championed the idea. McConnell brought up the legislation Thursday morning. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) initially objected, seemingly proving the Republican leader’s point that it cannot pass the Senate. But then Reid ran it by his members and, in the afternoon, agreed to hold that same vote. This time it was McConnell who objected. “The Republican leader objects to his own idea,” Reid declared on the floor. “So I guess we have a filibuster of his own bill.” McConnell claimed he never agreed to hold a simple majority vote on the bill. “What we’re talking about here is a perpetual debt ceiling grant in effect to the president. Matters of this level of controversy always require 60 votes,” the GOP leader said. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) scoffed at the notion that a senator would ask for a vote on a bill in good faith while requiring that it be “filibuster-proof.” “This may be a moment in Senate history when a senator … filibustered his own proposal,” he said. “I don’t think this has ever happened before.” ;