I'm tempted just to link to my post from yesterday, but here's the news: Once again, Republican senators have voted as bloc, along with Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, to prevent the long-awaited financial reform bill from moving to the floor for a full debate. They're not even filibustering the whole bill -- they're just filibustering an effort to start working on the bill.
Forcing the vote is clever procedural politics by the Democrats, if anyone bothered to notice. Senators who don't like this bill can change it simply by introducing an amendment on the floor, so complaining that the bill itself is problematic should, in theory, induce you to bring it to the floor and change it, unless...
- You don't support financial reform of any kind.
- You prefer that any financial-reform negotiations be held in secret, not with recorded votes on proposed amendments.
- You know your opinions are so unpopular in the Senate that they have no chance of being enacted as law, and so you're obstructing the process out of pique.
Any combination of those motivations doesn't paint a pretty picture of the Party of Lincoln. Or Nelson, for that matter.
-- Tim Fernholz
