Please note that our beloved John McCain, per the article via a letter he wrote and allegedly signed, would have voted FOR this ridiculous far left, crippling piece of legislation.
We need know no more about John McCain.
I’d want to see the letter before I trusted the Democrats.
Remember, this was a cloture vote. McCain has said he would consider a cap-and-trade system, but wasn’t committed to this particular bill. The Republicans wanted to debate amendments, but the democrats were blocking it.
Reid called for cloture barely 2 days into the bill, and really only after one day of debate. Cloture is a way to SHUT DOWN debate and discussion, to force a final vote.
This is one of the Democrat’s big tricks since taking over. It used to be the republicans would allow a lot of debate, and the democrats would do amendment after amendment, trying to force republicans into embarrassing votes. After a week or more, they’d run out of stuff to vote on, but the democrats would still oppose cloture. Except most of the time they managed to get something onerous through the amendment process, killing the bill because nobody would vote for it.
Now, in control, they basically allow no debate unless the republicans first vote for cloture. It’s a way to take away the minority right to block legislation, because once cloture if done, you can’t use your 60-vote limit to filibuster (because cloture is an agreement on debate limits).
It only works because the media puts up headlines and stories like this one, rather than the more accurate “Democrats move to cut off discussion of climate change bill”, and “Democrats cut off debate and force a cloture vote they know will lose, effectively killing their own bill rather than allow votes on popular republican amendments that will be politically uncomfortable for their caucus” (that was something said a LOT about republicans).