Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) introduced legislation to raise
the debt ceiling on Thursday, apparently with the intent of showing that
even Democrats would not support such a bill.
However, McConnell’s plan backfired after Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid (D-NV) called for a vote on the legislation, which would have
given the president the authority to raise the federal debt ceiling on
his own.
“What we have here is a case of Republicans here in the Senate once
again not taking ‘yes’ for an answer,” Reid said, after McConnell
announced his filibuster. “This morning the Republican leader asked
consent to have a vote on this proposal, just now I told everyone we
were willing to have that vote — up or down vote. Now the Republican
leader objects to his own idea. So I guess we have a filibuster of his
own bill, so I object.”
Apparently
aware the incident would bring media attention, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)
expressed astonishment at McConnell’s legislative antics.
“What just transpired deserves a word,” he remarked. “Sen. McConnell
came to the floor this morning and offered a change in law that would
help us avoid the kind of obstruction and the kind of show downs we’ve
had in the past over the debt ceiling.”
Durbin explained “to those who don’t follow the Senate” that by
calling for the legislation to be passed by a 60-vote majority,
McConnell had filibustered the bill. He said this was probably the first
time in history that a senator had filibuster his own proposal.
Reid and other Democrats
have called for the Senate’s filibuster rules to be reformed, claiming
that Republicans have abused the parliamentary procedure and obstructed
lawmaking.
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