(Breitbart) – On the floor of the U.S. Senate
on Sunday evening, something remarkable—a little bit insider-y in Washington,
but remarkable nonetheless—happened: The Senate Majority Leader, Sen.
Mitch McConnell (R-KY), his entire leadership team, and most of the Republicans
in the U.S. Senate voice voted through measures to fund Planned Parenthood in
its entirety and to help protect President Barack Obama’s nuclear arms deal
with Iran.
The reason the voice vote is significant is
because McConnell, especially, and his Whip Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX),
purposefully launched what appears to be an unprecedented effort to duck
accountability for their votes—and the votes of every other GOP member who
joined with them in supporting Obama’s Iran deal and funding for Planned
Parenthood.
The way it went down is a little bit
confusing, and procedurally awkward, but it’s truly odd—and highly unusual—for
members in the United States Senate to purposefully avoid roll call votes when
they are asked for one by a member of the Senate.
Here’s what happened: McConnell offered to the
highway bill a non-germane amendment—which was deemed germane by his colleagues
this weekend—that would reauthorize the highly controversial Export-Import
Bank. In response, Sens. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee
(R-UT) offered two amendments on Sunday evening to McConnell’s
non-germane-to-the-highway-bill-amendment-that-was-later-inaccurately-deemed-germane.
The reason why Cruz and Lee offered amendments
to McConnell’s amendment—essentially second tier amendments, or amendments to
an amendment—rather than to the highway bill itself is because McConnell
engaged in a tactic made popular by his predecessor, former Senate Majority
Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), called “filling the amendment tree.” Doing
that ensures that there is no opportunity for senators to offer any extra
amendments, and it is a tactic designed to stifle open and honest debate.
Cruz’s amendment would have, when it comes to
President Obama’s nuclear arms deal with Iran, kept sanctions on Iran until it
recognized the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state and until Iran
released the four Americans it is currently holding hostage in their country.
Lee’s amendment would have defunded Planned Parenthood—which has gotten lots of
extra attention as of late, as new covert videos have emerged showing
executives from the taxpayer-funded abortion-providing institution seeking to
sell aborted baby body parts.
Cruz’s came up first and when he offered it,
it was shot down by the chair in the Senate—the presiding officer—as
non-germane to McConnell’s Export Import Bank reauthorization amendment. Cruz
appealed the ruling of the chair—a vote that requires just 51 Senators, or a
simple majority in the Senate—and instead of actually having a recorded roll
call vote, the yeas and nays, GOP leadership including McConnell and Cornyn
ordered it voice voted down. Since the vote threshold to overturn the ruling of
the chair is a simple majority, and there are only 46 Democrats in the Senate,
it means that McConnell and Cornyn would have needed to deliver at least five
Republicans to kill Cruz’s motion, assuming all the Democrats voted that way.
Instead, by voice voting it down—in fact, only Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Lee
seconded Cruz’s motion for a roll call vote, not a sufficient number to get a
recorded vote—they kept themselves from having to make five Republicans walk
the political plank to vote against something they say they support.
Voice voting means a whole bunch of senators
just yelled out that they didn’t support Cruz’s effort to restrain Iran from
hurting Israel, because McConnell and Cornyn didn’t want evidence of which (at
least) five Republican senators would join presumably all the Democrats to vote
down the amendment’s chances.
The same exact process played out a few
minutes later when Lee moved to do the same.
In response to this process happening on
Sunday evening, in a public statement on his website, Cruz hammered McConnell.
“We’ve just seen something extraordinary on
the Senate floor,” Cruz said in the statement. “The American people elected a
Republican majority believing that a Republican majority would be somehow
different from a Democratic majority in the United States Senate.
Unfortunately, the way the current Senate operates, there is one party, the
Washington party.”
Cruz hammered McConnell for working with Reid
to achieve a non-Republican agenda. He said:
Senate leadership consists of the McConnell-Reid leadership
team. They operate as a team. They support the same priorities. If you look at
what has occurred in the United States Senate since the Republicans took a
majority, we immediately returned after winning a historic majority to pass a
trillion dollar ‘cromnibus’ bill filled with corporate welfare and pork. Then,
the so-called Republican majority voted to fund Obamacare. Then, the so-called
Republican majority voted to fund President Obama’s unconstitutional executive
amnesty. Then, the so-called Republican majority voted to confirm Loretta Lynch
as attorney general. Then, just moments ago, the so-called Republican majority
voted to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, an egregious example of cronyism
and corporate welfare. Every one of those is the priority of the Democratic
leader Harry Reid. Every one of those is the priority of the Republican leader,
Mitch McConnell. They operate as a team, expanding Washington and undermining
the liberty of the people.
Specifically about the voice-vote tactic, Cruz
called it “unprecedented” in U.S. Senate history. He went on:
What we just saw a moment ago is unprecedented in the annals of
Senate history. It consisted of the majority leader and the minority leader
denying members the ability to have votes on their amendments and indeed the
ability even to have a roll call vote. The denial of a second, as you just saw
a moment ago, which was aggressively whipped by the majority, is an
extraordinary measure designed to gag Senators and enforce the will of the
McConnell-Reid leadership team. It saddens me as a Republican to see Republican
leadership lead the effort to kill an amendment that would have prevented
lifting sanctions on Iran unless and until Iran recognizes Israel’s right to
exist as a Jewish state and unless and until Iran releases American hostages.
Make no mistake – granting a sufficient second for a roll call vote is done
customarily in the United States Senate. Denying it is extraordinary, and it is
done as a consequence of the majority leader Mitch McConnell being afraid for
his members to be on record on this issue. We then, subsequently, saw Senator
Mike Lee from Utah bring up his amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. We have
seen in recent weeks gruesome videos of senior officials of Planned Parenthood
discussing the selling of body parts of unborn children. These videos are
horrifying, and yet it saddens me greatly that the Republican leader led the
effort to continue the taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood.
McConnell’s office and Cornyn’s office did not
respond to a request for comment from Breitbart News about the matter.
But Reid’s spokesman, Adam Jentleson, said
that even he has never seen actions like what McConnell engaged in against the
Republican members of the Senate. Jentleson told Breitbart News in an
email:
I’ll defend filling the tree as a tactic when the leader is
facing an opposition determined to use every tool available to oppose
everything he does. But unlike Senator Reid, that is not the situation Senator
McConnell faces; he has a cooperative minority but is filling the tree to block
and silence members of his own party. Senator Reid never did that. Furthermore,
Senator McConnell is going beyond filling the tree to deny his own members a
sufficient second, which may be entirely unprecedented.
Jentleson added that McConnell’s fecklessness
and inability to solve problems within his own party—and his efforts to shut
down intra-Republican debate—prove he’s not an effective leader.
“For whatever reason, Senator McConnell
appears unable to resolve the concerns of his more conservative members and
seems to think he has no recourse but to resort to procedural maneuvers to
silence them,” Jentleson, who has worked for Reid for years, told Breitbart
News. “Senator Reid filled the tree when he felt he’d reached an impasse with
Republicans, but as far as I can recall he never filled the tree or denied a
sufficient second to members of his own caucus.”
This theme that McConnell is more interested
in working with Democrats than he is in accomplishing GOP priorities is one
that is not new. A few months ago, Breitbart News broke down empirical vote
data showing that McConnell as Majority Leader this year has not accomplished
any GOP priorities and has not succeeded in getting any legislation through the
Senate and signed by the president without overwhelming support from the
Democratic conference.
Back then — something that clearly
continues — Jentleson was gleeful that McConnell is acting more like a
Democrat than a Republican.
“While Republicans have done nothing to create
jobs and help the middle class, on other topics like passing clean funding for
Homeland Security and confirming Loretta Lynch, Senator McConnell has done the
right thing by bringing bills and nominations to the floor that Democrats can
support,” Jentleson said back then. “Democrats hope this trend will continue.”
It clearly has. According to nationally
syndicated radio host Mark Levin, it will continue even longer unless McConnell
resigns as Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. Levin said on his Facebook
page:
It is time for Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner
(R-OH) to resign for the good of the nation and the Republican Party. The
nation and GOP are both suffering as a result of the unwillingness or inability
of McConnell and Boehner to effectively defend either. Instead, these
politicians are consumed with consolidating their own power on Capitol Hill and
silencing opponents who dare to challenge their ironfisted rule. Sadly, they
rarely act in the best interests of America’s future. Indeed, time and again
they have delivered victory after victory for Obama and his radical agenda —
from spending, borrowing, and Obamacare to illegal immigration, Iran and
‘trade’ power. Never before has a Congress controlled by one party been so
thoroughly impotent. This is due to the disastrous leadership of McConnell and
Boehner. It is time for younger, wiser, and more courageous Republican leaders
— constitutional conservatives who understand the role of a statesman in
perilous times — who are willing to truly lead the nation and the Republican
Party based on America’s enlightened principles, advance the cause of liberty
and republican government, and make the case everyday to the American people.
Of course, just a day after this effort on the
Senate floor on Sunday, McConnell forced the Export-Import Bank reauthorization
amendment to the unrelated highway bill through the Senate late Monday
evening.
In response, Cruz issued a scathing statement:
Tonight, the McConnell-Reid leadership team pushed through
another win for the Washington Cartel, and they did so at the taxpayers’
expense. By casting votes in favor of cronyism and special interests, the
Senate made clear what group matters most to them… and the answer is not the
American people,” Cruz said in a press release. “Worse still, the one person
who had the ability to make sure the Ex-Im Bank remained expired was the
majority leader. Rather than keeping the promise he made to every member of his
party, he turned his back on the American people and allowed one of the worst
examples of corporate welfare our nation has ever known to be resurrected from
the dead.
Cruz added that McConnell is doing all this
while ignoring issues that matter to Americans.
“Instead of taking up issues that really
matter to the American people, like defunding Planned Parenthood, standing up
against Iran, passing ‘Kate’s Law’ and ending sanctuary cities, the Senate
chose to satisfy the demands of big businesses with even bigger pocketbooks,”
Cruz said. “Fortunately, leaders in the House have indicated this bill is dead
on arrival. I hope that my colleagues in the House remain true to conservative
principles and stand firm in refusing to surrender to the Washington Cartel.”
http://www.teaparty.org/mcconnell-rams-through-voice-vote-to-fund-planned-parenthood-defend-obamas-iran-deal-110305/
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