David Sirota is certainly right about this. The Senate will only allow an anonymous voice vote on Bernie Sanders' amendment to fund the bailout by raising "$300 billion from a five-year, 10 percent surtax on couples with incomes of more than $1 million and individuals earning $500,000." That's a procedural travesty. There's no obvious reason that United States Senators shouldn't have to take a position in order to kill this amendment. There's no clear rationale for denying voters information about where their Senators stand on this sort of legislation. But according to a quick conversation with Sanders' office, that doesn't mean there's no way to tally the vote. The anonymous refers to the congressional record. But the vote is public, and broadcast on C-SPAN. Hypothetically, if anyone wanted to watch it, they could draw up a list of who voted on it, and what their judgment was. I'm sure Sanders office would happily tell those hypothetical good samaritans the exact time when the bill is being considered. And finally, I'm sure that lots of hypothetical bloggers would happily post that hypothetical final list just to bring some slight measure of accountability to the process. You know. Hypothetically. Update: Since some folks in comments are taking the second paragraph as a shot at Sirota, I should qualify and say it was meant as nothing of the kind. I wasn't near a television tonight, but was actually hoping some folks would watch and draw up a tally. Sirota, for his part, was drawing attention to something important and troubling.
