Senate Rejects Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act Because of Natural Disaster Spending

The Senate today failed to vote for cloture on the motion to proceed to the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act (H.J. Res. 66), an annual measure that has imposed import restrictions on the country of Burma/Myanmar for its violations of norms of democracy and freedom. The measure was intended to serve as a vehicle for additional natural disaster funding in the wake of the recent hurricans and tropical storms.

Last year, the Senate agreed to the bill 99-1 (Senator Michael Enzi, R - Wyoming, was the sole holdout). However, the 53 yeas the bill garnered was not enough to end debate on the motion to proceed. Republican Senators Dan Coats (Indiana, Susan Collins (Maine), and Olympia Snowe (Maine) joined Democrats to provide the 53 votes. The 33 nays were all Republican Senators, and 14 Senators did not vote.

Senator Harry Reid (Majority Leader, D- Nevada) moved the vote on the non-controversial Burma bill to show that opponents were voting against the bill solely for the purpose of denying natural disaster funding. Last week Senator Reid indicated that he could move an emergency relief bill as a stand-alone bill in the Senate. This may be his next move. This comes in the wake of controversial comments House Majority Leader Eric Cantor made during Hurricane Irene that indicated that disaster relief would have to be tied to spending cuts.

The Senate is scheduled to resume consideration of the motion to proceed to this bill at 10 am tomorrow.

Senate Schedule: Monday, September 12

2 pm: The Senate will convene and begin a period of morning business.

The Senate will then resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.J. Res 66, a joint resolution that renews import restrictions on Burma/Myanmar as a result of its violations of democratic norms.

5:30pm: The vote to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.J. Res 66, setting a timetable to end debate on the motion and bring it to a future vote, will occur at this time.

Procedural notes: Under Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a quorum is mandatory before cloture is invoked. This requirement has been waived by unanimous consent.

Check out other recent posts:
Senate Takes First Step Under Debt Ceiling Deal

Will President Obama's 'American Jobs Act' Pass? - Floor Fight Analysis

Senate Takes First Step Under Debt Ceiling Deal

The U.S. Senate acted today under the debt ceiling deal hashed out this summer in a largely symbolic vote on a "resolution of disapproval." If passed, the resolution of disapproval could have gone to the President's desk and required him to veto in order to raise the debt ceiling.

Senate Democrats blocked the resolution at one of the very first stops in the legislative process - the motion to proceed to the consideration of the measure. The resolution of disapproval took the form of a "joint resolution," which is procedurally no different from a bill in the Senate.

Vote results below. Other recent posts: Floor Fight Analysis: Will President Obama's American Jobs Act Pass?

Here are the vote results on the bill: 45 yeas, 52 nays

Senators not voting:
Jay Rockefeller (D - West Virginia)
Marco Rubio (R- Florida)
Jim Webb (D - Virginia)

Democrats voting to move the resolution forward:
Ben Nelson (Nebraska)

Republicans voting to move the resolution forward:
Lamar Alexander (R- Tennessee)
Kelly Ayotte (R- New Hampshire)
John Barrasso (R- Wyoming)
Roy Blunt (R- Missouri)
John Boozman (R- Arkansas)
Richard Burr (R- North Carolina)
Saxby Chambliss (R- Georgia)
Dan Coats (R- Indiana)
Tom Coburn (R- Oklahoma)
Thad Cochran (R- Mississippi)
Susan Collins (R- Maine)
John Cornyn (R- Texas)
Mike Crapo (R- Idaho)
Jim DeMint (R- South Carolina)
Mike Enzi (R- Wyoming)
Lindsey Graham (R- South Carolina)
Chuck Grassley (R- Iowa)
Orrin Hatch (R- Utah)
Dean Heller (R- Nevada)
John Hoeven (R- North Dakota)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R- Texas)
Jim Inhofe (R- Oklahoma)
Johnny Isakson (R- Georgia)
Mike Johanns (R- Nebraska)
Ron Johnson (R- Wisconsin)
Mark Kirk (R- Illinois)
Jon Kyl (R- Arizona)
Mike Lee (R- Utah)
Richard Lugar (R- Indiana)
John McCain (R- Arizona)
Mitch McConnell (R- Kentucky)
Jerry Moran (R- Kansas)
Lisa Murkowski (R- Alaska)
Rand Paul (R- Kentucky)
Rob Portman (R- Ohio)
Jim Risch (R- Idaho)
Pat Roberts (R- Kansas)
Jeff Sessions (R- Alabama)
Richard Shelby (R- Alabama)
Olympia Snowe (R- Maine)
John Thune (R- South Dakota)
Pat Toomey (R- Pennsylvania)
David Vitter (R- Louisiana)
Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi)

Republicans Voting Against:
Bob Corker (Tennessee)
Scott Brown (Massachusetts)

Democrats Voting Against:
Daniel Akaka (D- Hawaii)
Max Baucus (D- Montana)
Mark Begich (D- Alaska)
Michael Bennet (D- Colorado)
Jeff Bingaman (D- New Mexico)
Richard Blumenthal (D- Connecticut)
Barbara Boxer (D- California)
Sherrod Brown (D- Ohio)
Maria Cantwell (D- Washington)
Benjamin Cardin (D- Maryland)
Tom Carper (D- Delaware)
Bob Casey (D- Pennsylvania)
Kent Conrad (D- North Dakota)
Chris Coons (D- Delaware)
Dick Durbin (D- Illinois)
Dianne Feinstein (D- California)
Al Franken (D- Minnesota)
Kirsten Gillibrand (D- New York)
Kay Hagan (D- North Carolina)
Tom Harkin (D- Iowa)
Daniel Inouye (D- Hawaii)
Tim Johnson (D- South Dakota)
John Kerry (D- Massachusetts)
Amy Klobuchar (D- Minnesota)
Herb Kohl (D- Wisconsin)
Mary Landrieu (D- Louisiana)
Frank Lautenberg (D- New Jersey)
Patrick Leahy (D- Vermont)
Carl Levin (D- Michigan)
Joe Lieberman (ID - Connecticut)
Joe Manchin (D- West Virginia)
Claire McCaskill (D- Missouri)
Bob Menendez (D- New Jersey)
Jeff Merkley (D- Oregon)
Barbara Mikulski (D- Maryland)
Patty Murray (D- Washington)
Bill Nelson (D- Florida)
Mark Pryor (D- Arkansas)
Jack Reed (D- Rhode Island)
Harry Reid (D- Nevada)
Bernie Sanders (I- Vermont)
Chuck Schumer (D- New York)
Jeanne Shaheen (D- New Hampshire)
Debbie Stabenow (D- Michigan)
Jon Tester (D- Montana)
Mark Udall (D- Colorado)
Tom Udall (D- New Mexico)
Mark Warner (D- Virginia)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D- Rhode Island)
Ron Wyden (D- Oregon)

Will The American Jobs Act Pass? - Floor Fight Analysis

The President tried to signal a strong focus on jobs with his speech to a joint session of Congress yesterday. In it, he bluntly asked Congress to pass his American Jobs Act. He outlined several center-leaning ideas in his speech that Republicans have supported in the past. See description of the bill: The American Jobs Act

Political Aims: A Clintonian Strategy
With the American Jobs Act, the President hopes to repeat the strategy of President Bill Clinton after the 1994 Republican takeover of the House:
(1) Take the center ground, making the opposition appear extreme if it doesn't give his ideas a fair hearing. Solidify his position with centrist swing voters and have a legislative work product to campaign on.
(2) Acknowledge and use proposals from the other side, making it harder for the opposition to obstruct legislation for partisan purposes
(3) Split the other camp, isolating the moderates from the extremists.

Is It A Win-Win?
The President has a good chance of succeeding with this strategy. Most Americans want to get behind a jobs package that appears centrist. The President's proposals are the only proposals on the table at the moment. If the bill passes, the President has a significant legislative victory relating to jobs under his belt. If Republicans knock it down, the President can make a campaign against Congress in the election.

What About The Senate?
An earlier version of this post operated under the assumption that most of the action would be in the House. However, the bill has moved first in the Senate instead. With the ratio of Democrats and Republicans, there was simply no way that the bill was going to get the margin for cloture (60 votes). This clearly suggests that the President and Democrats are trying to draw Republicans out and dare them to block the bill in its earliest stages so that Democrats can rally around it.

What Can The Republicans Do?
(1) Use the House to bring an alternative package up for consideration.
This would blunt any arguments that the Republicans are simply the "party of no" and put Republican job creation proposals squarely against the American Job Act.

(2) Fundamentally change the character of the bill through the amendment process.
Republicans may hope to use the House to add proposals to the bill that will make it unacceptable to Democrats or force the President to veto his own bill. Politico reports that House Republicans have sent a letter to President Obama suggesting that each part of the bill be subject to scrutiny on its own. This means that Republicans understand that they will suffer if they don't appear to give the President's bill a fair hearing, but that they can use the procedures of the House to muddle the issue significantly. In this case the House will want to actually pass a version of the bill and work with Senate Republicans.

(3) Simply reject the bill in the House of Representatives.
This is the least likely outcome because it gives the President and the Democrats the upper hand and allows them to campaign on the bill.

Conclusions
(1) The American Jobs Act has a moderate chance of passage - despite the divided Congress, whether it's a dead letter depends on forthcoming political maneuvers outlined above.
(2)If the President is serious about passage, it is absolutely crucial that he split off a group of moderate Republicans.
(3) The best Republican strategies are to split up the bill and debate each portion, pass the bill with unacceptable alterations (forcing a Presidential veto or Congressional deadlock), or both.
(4) The Democrats must move quickly, have the bill considered in its entirety, and be willing to allow opposition amendments made in good faith. Democrats need to do everything in their power to prevent the bill from getting so defaced that the President could contemplate a veto. If the bill dies, Democrats will want to make it clear that they did everything in their power to pass a clean bill in good faith.

Mintaro Oba's LinkedIn - Aspiring North Korea Expert

The American Jobs Act So Far

Yesterday, the President urged a joint session of Congress to pass his "American Jobs Act." The proposals have not been put into legislative form yet (Politico reports it might take one or two weeks), but this is the list of proposals so far as we know:

(1) Tax credits for small businesses that hire people.
(2) Funds and improvements targeted towards infrastructure and competitiveness to create opportunities for employment.
(3) Reforming the unemployment insurance system, building on a Georgia system Republicans have championed that brings people back to work.
(4) Cutting payroll tax in half, which "will provide a tax cut of $1,500 to the typical family earning $50,000 a year" (The White House).
(5) A detailed deficit reduction package to fully fund the American Jobs Act. It would ask wealthy Americans to share the sacrifice through tax policy. It would build on policies that have been circulating for months - reforming the tax code/closing tax loopholes, spending cuts, and reforms to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

What Will President Obama's Job Speech Look Like?

President Obama is scheduled to speak on jobs at 7pm tonight. While we will have a follow up post, here are some guesses about what the speech will look like. The first two are pretty plausible, and the second two are just guesses:

1. The President will take the center ground.
One of the President's biggest problems has been an inability to get any sort of bipartisan action in Congress. Therefore, he will probably want to either co-opt some Republican ideas or refer to proposals that have gained bipartisan support in the past. If he succeeds and Congressional Republicans oppose the proposals, he could go into the campaign saying that Republicans prioritize obstruction over ideas that they themselves support.

2. The President will continue the theme he invoked in his debt ceiling debate - compromise a la Henry Clay.
The President will likely deride the partisan atmosphere of Congress and frame himself as a compromiser focused on the national interest and frame Republicans as purely political creatures.

3. The President could invoke "competitiveness."
While this, in our opinion, would be a bad idea, "competitiveness" is an idea that has gained a lot of currency with members of the Obama administration. It was the dominant theme of President Obama's most recent State of the Union address. President Obama could use it to hint at concerns about the U.S. relative position in the world and a rising China and promote policies ranging from education to green jobs.

4. Green jobs.
The President tried to tie the concern over jobs and momentum for energy/environmental legislation together during his first campaign, leading some of us to think that he was going to push a package that involved so-called "green jobs" instead of the eventual health care reform legislation. With the increasing influence of Senate stars like John Kerry, President Obama may be willing to include a green jobs message again.

If so, President Obama might have to explain his recent, bewildering move on loosening smog regulations. Perhaps he would use it to play the compromise card, saying that since he is willing to back away from Democratic priorities for the national interest, Republicans should support him on a green jobs proposal.