Since late last week, Senate Democrats have been knocking their Republican colleagues for running away from a vote on controversial House spending legislation. Republican leader Mitch McConnell put it on the calendar himself, but every time Democrats have tried to hand them a vote on it, he’s demurred.
Ask Republicans what’s up, and they say Dems are being disingenuous. They say they have no problem voting on the House plan, and are prepared to do so in the next day or so.
It got so bad that, on Tuesday, Harry Reid accused McConnell et al of reneging on an agreement they all struck together with Joe Biden last week.
So what gives?
What seems to be happening is that Republicans need every hour they can spare to get their soldiers in line. A lot of their members are uneasy with the plan, which includes something for everybody to hate — deep cuts, anti-abortion riders, rollbacks of environmental protections, and on and on.
Tuesday afternoon, walking into a weekly caucus lunch, Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) said he opposed the cuts in the House bill. By the end of the lunch he walked it back. Other, more liberal Republicans aren’t staking out positions publicly, but are clearly uneasy with the plan.
It’s important to Republicans, for p.r. reasons, to appear united, or nearly united, on this bill. The clock is ticking, though. At his weekly press briefing, Reid threatened to force a vote at the earliest opportunity if the GOP doesn’t let him hold one sometime Tuesday evening. That would be 1 a.m. Wednesday — Senate Republicans are now on notice.
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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