Some explanation time. Hotlining is passing at end of day by unaminous consent. Lots of non-constroversial bills go like that. Except DeMint and some others now object, and have for a bit. If he doesn't approve of something, he invokes a public Hold. To get past the hold, there must be a cloture filing. Delay. 99-1, but now it requires 30 hours before you can continue. Delay. Now he filibusters the bill, requiring ANOTHER cloture vote, only you have to wait a bit now. More delays. Cloture to end debate. Few more days.. Finally the vote itself. And all this assumes there is a 60 vote majority on each step, otherwise, oh well. DeMint just veto'd.South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint warned Monday evening that he would block all legislation that has not been cleared by his office in the final days of the pre-election session.
Bret Bernhardt, DeMint's chief of staff, said in an e-mail to GOP and Democratic aides that his boss would place a hold on all legislation that has not been cleared by both parties by the end of the day Tuesday.
Any senator can place a hold to block legislation — and overcoming that would require the Senate to take time-consuming steps to invoke cloture, which would require 60 votes.
With the Senate slated to adjourn Thursday until after the elections, DeMint's stance could mean trouble for Democrats if the two parties don't quickly agree on a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating past Sept. 30. And that could mean the demise of a slew of other stalled and largely noncontroversial bills that both parties are looking to clear before Election Day.
DeMint told POLITICO Tuesday afternoon that his staff was currently reviewing 40-50 bills that both sides want to clear by unanimous consent before Congress adjourns for the month of October.
“Some of it is easy, and some of it has big price tags – if it’s not paid for and if it doesn’t have a [Congressional Budget Office] score, then it shouldn’t pass without a Senate vote,” he said.
In his Monday night email, Bernhardt said that the "the Executive Committee of the Senate Steering Committee has asked the Steering Committee staff to hold all bills that have not been hotlined by close of business Tuesday," referring to the conservative advisory committee that DeMint chairs.
"If there are any bills you would like cleared before we go out, please get them to the Steering Committee staff along with a CBO score, if applicable, by close of business on Tuesday."
DeMint’s demand is not entirely unusual – and it mirrors a tactic previously employed by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) at the end of a Senate session.
“At the end of the session, crap gets out of here and nobody knows what it’s in it and we’re not going to do that,” Coburn said Tuesday, saying DeMint’s move was backed by the executive Steering Committee last week.
“This was not my decision,” DeMint said Tuesday. “It was a decision by eight people of the Steering Executive Committee and it’s something we’ve done before.”
Wesley Denton, DeMint’s spokesman, said that the committee simply has asked for 48 hours to review the bills.
“If you wait until Thursday night and then unveil some big spending bill, your bill is not going to pass,” Denton said, accusing Washington of “ramming through bills no one reads.”
But Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), mocked DeMint, saying he wondered what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “thinks about self-proclaimed King DeMint’s unilateral declaration.”
“One thing I know for sure is if their conference continues to follow the lead of the junior senator from South Carolina, they are destined to be in the minority for years to come,” Manley said.
This is how the rules are constructed in the Senate. So. Go to the VA? Prepare for a new care center. Get SS of any kind? We better get used to catfood. The GOP has been talking about another government shutdown. It's just ahead of schedule, I suspect.
