They say they have 55 votes. If they charter in Kennedy and Byrd from ICU that’d be 57 votes. Seat Al-Franken and 58. Still two short. Easy pickings for Obama. A bbq or ballgame invite or something will flip a couple of rinos.
Byrd is from a coal State, he may be on the fence
Where did you hear 55, I haven’t heard that anywhere?
“But, the key component of the legislative process under these circumstances would be the U.S. Senate. Inhofe pointed to a measure that would require any climate treaty to include developing nations to self-impose the carbon restrictions for the United States to also go along with it.
“While the House will pass the bill … in the Senate, they’re not going to be able to pass it,” Inhofe said. “You guys – it’s just not going to happen. Now we have a history of what’s happened in the Senate. We had the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Remember that’s where we passed by a 94-1, I think it was, saying we don’t want to ratify any treaty – the Senate doesn’t – that doesn’t include developing nations with developed nations. Well, that stuck with us.”
Inhofe explained that in 2003 and 2005, he was able to nearly single-handedly take down a bill sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Liebermann, I-Conn., which would have set a cap-and-trade system in place.
“Yet, with very popular people, like McCain and Liebermann coming up in ’03 and then again in ’05 – the reason I’m going to tell you that they don’t have the votes, it’s not going to pass is that in ’05, that’s when I was on the floor for eight hours a day, five days, or about 10 hours a days, 50 hours – is that only two senators would come to the floor that would help me with this because I was taking on McCain and Liebermann on this silly issue.”
But, in 2008 with a similar bill sponsored by Sens. Liebermann and John Warner, R-Va., he had gained significant support compared to his 2003 and 2005 efforts, showing a trend that passage of this type of bill is becoming increasingly more difficult.
“And you fast forward to one year ago today, 2008 – Warner-Liebermann,” Inhofe said. “It didn’t take five days, it took two days – 23 senators came down to help me out on this issue, because I told [California Democratic Sen.] Barbara Boxer to you know, get over it, get a life. You lost, we won.”
The Oklahoma senator credited the Founding Fathers, noting that the senate rules put in place are a difficult obstacle for the global warming activists in the federal government to overcome.
“It will pass in the House, in the Senate it will not pass,” Inhofe continued. “And her latest vote and she won’t admit this, but it’s 34 votes and it takes 60 votes in the Senate. Maybe the people who wrote our constitution knew what they were talking about.””
I have read that the Senate Dems have 43 votes. There are a group of about 8 Dem Senators from the heartland (spearheaded by Bayh) who are a NO.
Also have read that the Maine sisters are a NO. I think the GOP will stay as a NO block in the Senate.
Reid doesn’t have the votes and my guess is he probably won’t even bring this up for a vote and be humiliated. The best Pelosi and Reid can do is to pick the bill apart and pass small, incremental stuff - for the time being.
Dems do not want this issue front and center going into the 2010 elections because they will be severely hurt by it. If it doesn’t pass in Oct. (and looks dead at this point), it will not come back until or unless Dem majorities remain after 2010.
Pelosi just saved her speakership, but may have called in way too many chips and also may have just cost herself a dozen or more seats as Dems who voted for this from conservative leaning districts should suffer.
(RINO) call: Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, John McCain, brings the total to 61!