Posted on 12/15/2010 9:30:51 AM PST by Qbert
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) will force readings of both a nuclear arms treaty and $1.1 trillion spending bill that could eat up hours of the remaining lame-duck Congress.
DeMint will invoke a senatorial privilege to ask that texts of both the New START Treaty and the 2011 omnibus spending bill be read aloud on the Senate floor.
The readings could take seven to 12 hours to verbalize the START Treaty, while the omnibus could take 40 to 60 hours, according to a spokesman for DeMint.
The readings could eat up a substantial amount of time in the closing days of the lame-duck Congress, in which Senate Democrats are racing against the clock to pass through a number of priorities. Democrats hope to pass a tax-cut bill, on which they'll vote Wednesday afternoon, along with a repeal of "Don't ask, don't tell," the START Treaty and the DREAM Act immigration bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) "hoped" in a floor speech Wednesday that DeMint would not force a full reading, calling the move a "colossal waste of time."
Floor readings of measures before the Senate are typically waived by unanimous consent without any objections. But if a senator were to require that lengthy bills be read, the delay could take hours. (The omnibus is over 1,900 pages.)
DeMint's maneuver will no doubt cause a headache for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as he figures out how to fit all of the remaining legislative items into the waning days of the lame duck. Lawmakers had been set to leave Washington on Friday, but that deadline appears flimsy at this point. Reid had sought to avoid working the week of the Christmas holiday, as lawmakers had done last year, and has now threatened work after the holidays if necessary.
That session was delayed after a similar tactic last year by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who'd forced a lengthy reading of an amendment to the healthcare reform bill that led to the withdrawal of that amendment.
DeMint's move earned quick support from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
"Sen. DeMint is right to demand the reading of the 2,000 page earmark filled spending bill. Senate GOP should stop the bill," Gingrich wrote on Twitter. Both DeMint and Gingrich are rumored to be possible candidates for president in 2012.
-- Jordan Fabian contributed to this post
This post was updated at 10:00 a.m.
How novel! That the bills be read before they become law. I am deeply saddened by the DC SOP.
Slow it all down and stop everything. Make sure nothing happens with the Amnesty/Dream Act. I could care about Start because our govt is probably more evil than Putin is.
Yes!!
CALL YOUR SENATORS NOW!!!!!!!!!
DO IT!
This is absolute MADNESS.
ALL bills should be read in full (in both houses) prior to vote. That way, (paraphrasing Pelosi) we might be able to know what’s in a bill BEFORE it passes. This would also discourage obscene length in proposed bills.
Yes is right. The Libby leftists seem to think that if they stack a bill to 2,000 pages no one will read it because, you know the famous saying, - we gotta pass this bill so we know what’s in it is their strategy. Now, they WILL know what’s in it and so will we.
This is shining the light of truth on the RAT and RINO-infested Senate.
Tax Deal Possibly Endangered by Error in Legislation (Incompetence!)
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/15/senate-vote-package-extending-bush-tax-cuts/ ^
Posted on Wed Dec 15 09:23:33 2010 by Red in Blue PA
President Obama on Wednesday urged lawmakers to reach a compromise on tax extenders but a glitch in the bill caused some senators to scramble for a correction without endangering its outcome.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., came to the Senate floor Wednesday to announce a "mistake" in the legislation. She said a program to extend low income housing tax credits for people who lost homes during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was left out of the bill even though it was a deal that all sides approved
Ha...so now they have to READ IT ALL AGAIN....:-)
Those that God wishes to destroy first makes them insane
Sen. DeMint seems to be a nova in a starless sky.
Give em hell Jim.
Harry Reid IS a colossal waste of time!
Go DeMint!
Reid is pure evil.
Please let it be so. That’s almost TWO WEEKS of time that would have to be spent reading the bills that congress would not be able to pass more crap.
Better to have a few days of a "colossal waste of time" than a trillion dollar colossal waste of money.
That's the way it's done in Canada - for three readings each in Parliament and the Senate. If anyone was wondering why Canada's socialized-medicine bill was all of six pages long...
I just spoke to Janelle in Sen. Demint’s office. She says that he will be invoking privilege on both of these bills.
It is an absolute certainty that he will do it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
Bwaaa... DeMint has thrown a big wrench in Reid’s machine.
“Tax Deal Possibly Endangered by Error in Legislation (Incompetence!)”
-Unbelievable. Did you know they recently discovered a drafting error in Obamacare, long after it was passed that wound up spiking up the prices of medicine for sick children...?
“Another Obamacare Oops
December 8, 2010 10:38 A.M.
By Katrina Trinko
Add this to the annals of formerly unnoticed provisions of Obamacare: children’s hospitals are facing drug price hikes that will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars to supply needed medicine to children with rare diseases. The New York Times reports:
...The discounts typically range from 30 percent to 50 percent, and children’s hospitals say the change is costing them hundreds of millions of dollars. …
A House Democrat who worked on the health care law said the situation had resulted from “an honest mistake in drafting,” and he added, “No one intended to take away any of the drug discounts that children’s hospitals already had.”
NO MORE OF THIS!! READ THE D__N BILLS!
“ALL bills should be read in full (in both houses) prior to vote. That way, (paraphrasing Pelosi) we might be able to know what’s in a bill BEFORE it passes. This would also discourage obscene length in proposed bills.”
Good point.
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