Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Here is an excerpt from Senator Ken Cuccinelli’s June 16th edition of The Cuccinelli Compass.
During the debate on the first try at an immigration bill, one of our own U.S. Senators, Jim Webb, voted wrong on one of the amendments to the bill. He voted to allow convicted felons to receive amnesty under the bill. Obviously, the right position was to FORBID convicted felons from receiving amnesty (of course, an even better position would be to forbid everyone from getting amnesty.).
So, Sen. Webb was willing to give illegal aliens amnesty who, in addition to violating our immigration laws, were also convicted felons, and to happily invite them into the fold of American Citizens. Mariel boatlift anyone?
Senator Webb went on to vote AGAINST cloture. What does this mean? Cloture is the fancy name for cutting off debate. Thus a “cloture vote” is a vote to cut off debate. The purpose of a cloture vote in the U.S. Senate is to stop a filibuster and move to a vote on the underlying bill. It takes 60 votes for a cloture motion to succeed. That’s why it is often said that you need 60 votes to pass anything in the U.S. Senate, because if you can’t stop a filibuster, you can’t ever get to a vote on the bill in question.
Now, let’s look at these two votes together.
Sen. Webb was willing to vote to give illegal alien-felons amnesty, but he wasn’t willing to bring the underlying bill to a final vote? But, you say, those are inconsistent positions!? Correct.
This must be the first time a Washington politician has voted inconsistently on the same bill! NOT correct.
Why would anyone who was willing to vote for amnesty for felons vote against the bill (remember the failed cloture vote killed the bill)?
The only logical explanation for Sen. Webb’s two votes is that had the bill actually survived the cloture vote, Sen. Webb would have voted FOR the bill.
Then why did he vote against cloture?
The reason is simple: that vote gave him (he hopes) political cover because it looks like he opposes the bill. However (and here’s the trick), if they have 59 votes for cloture, Sen. Webb will flip his vote, vote for cloture and then vote to pass the bill.
He does not want to vote for the bill if the bill is going to fail.
Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrats’ Majority Leader knows this. Thus, if Bush delivers more Republican Senators to support cloture, then Sen. Reid will ‘magically’ be able to produce more Democrat Senators to support cloture that had previously voted against it (like Sen. Webb).
That’s today’s lesson in tricky politics. Is it any wonder people get a wee-bit cynical about politics these days?
