Clearly they won’t be able to stop the filibuster. What is important is that the vote come out a majority, which means we need every republican to vote.
If the vote is not “yes”, then the democrats can say that it is the republican’s fault for putting up a bill that could not even pass.
If there are 50 votes to proceed, then it is clear that only thing shutting down the government is the democrat’s insistance on a SPECIFIC item being taken out of spending, an item that a majority of the people want, and that is entirely non-controversial, to the point where their own argument is that “it is too much money”, not “this wall thing is crazy, we should not have any walls at all”.
Looks like we’ll be waiting a while, since the senators are not actually here yet.
Typical Senate is out to lunch.
of course, Jeff Flake voted no, not because he opposes a wall, or has any particular concern about spending, but because he really really hates Donald Trump.
And unfortunately he apparently didn’t see the need to leave the capital, so he is here to vote.
But if we get all the other republicans, we’ll have 50 votes, which would win passage with the VP breaking a tie; being a filibuster vote, there is no “tie” to break.
of course, Jeff Flake voted no, not because he opposes a wall, or has any particular concern about spending, but because he really really hates Donald Trump.
And unfortunately he apparently didn’t see the need to leave the capital, so he is here to vote.
But if we get all the other republicans, we’ll have 50 votes, which would win passage with the VP breaking a tie; being a filibuster vote, there is no “tie” to break.
Corker and Heller will join Flake in "grudge" voting to stop Trump and Lord knows what is going on with Hatch.