Today the U.S. Senate voted, 60-37 (invoking cloture), on the motion to proceed for S. 1845 – the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act. This would extend the unemployment benefits for the 1.3 million people who lost them in December.

There were no surprises in the vote from Missouri’s senators:

Question: On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to S. 1845 )

Vote Number: 2

Vote Date: January 7, 2014, 10:44 AM

Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Cloture on the Motion to Proceed Agreed to

Measure Number: S. 1845 (Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act )

Measure Title: A bill to provide for the extension of certain unemployment benefits, and for other purposes.

Vote Counts: YEAs 60

NAYs 37

Not Voting 3

Blunt (R-MO), Nay

McCaskill (D-MO), Yea

[emphasis added]

No explanations for the difference of opinion yet.

From the White House Council of Economic Advisers (December 2013):

New Report: The Economic Benefits of Extending Unemployment Insurance

Posted by Jason Furman, Betsey Stevenson on December 05, 2013 at 09:00 AM EST

The United States economy continues to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and while substantial progress has been made, more work remains to boost economic growth and speed job creation. Despite ten consecutive quarters of GDP growth and 7.8 million private sector jobs added since early 2010, the unemployment rate is unacceptably high at 7.3 percent, and far too many families are still struggling to regain the foothold they had prior to the crisis.

The Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program authorized by Congress in 2008 has provided crucial support to the economy and to millions of Americans who lost jobs through no fault of their own. Under current law, EUC will end on December 28, 2013[1].

This report argues that allowing EUC to expire would be harmful to millions of workers and their families, counterproductive to the economic recovery, and unprecedented in the context of previous extensions to earlier unemployment insurance programs.

[….]

The effects of allowing EUC benefits to expire would be felt nationwide:

Job-seekers who will lose access to EUC benefits can be found in nearly every state.

[….]

State [/]  Unemployed losing access to benefits

Missouri 84,500

[….]

[emphasis added]

As if the House will do anything.

Previously: U.S. Senate confirmation vote on Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen (January 6, 2014)

The republican majority in the United States Senate defeated the repeal of DADT in a vote of 40-57:

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 111th Congress – 2nd Session

as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Upon Reconsideration, Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to S. 3454 )

Vote Number: 270 Vote Date: December 9, 2010, 03:33 PM

Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Cloture on the Motion to Proceed Rejected

Measure Number: S. 3454 (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011)

Measure Title: An original bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2011 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.

Vote Counts: YEAs 57

NAYs 40

Not Voting 3

YEAs —57

McCaskill (D-MO)

Claire McCaskill’s vote was not a surprise to most:

Claire McCaskill (D): “Kitchen Table Talk” in Kansas City, part 3 (December 19, 2008)

….Question: Hi, I just have a quick question, my name is Sarah…about the military. Two years ago when you were on Hardball with Chris –  

Claire McCaskill: I know what you’re going to say! Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell!

Question: Yeah. I want to know, two years later, especially with the support of Barack Obama in reevaluating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and recent document signed by 104 Generals and Admirals, if you have rethought your position on reevaluating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Claire McCaskill: I think you will see action on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And, I think that – I think we’re to the point that people realize that that is a probably irrelevant consideration. And as I said to a general the other day, “I wish you guys were as worried about the problems you have in the military in terms of-” I’ve been very involved in looking at sexual assault issues that women have had in the military. And there has been an incredible problem of women being sexually assaulted in the military and us not dealing with it. Not with the right mental health provisions, not with the right criminal consequences provisions, and I think there is now, you know as time goes on, I think you are seeing adjustments, even within the military that I think, it has a very good chance of passing this time, if we, if he changes the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and I’ll be happy to support it. And my daughter, the one that talked me into voting, publicly endorsing Barack Obama, will be so glad that I’ve said that publicly. [audience laughter][applause] She bugs me constantly about it! Constantly! I will just be sitting at my desk, in the Senate, and I’ll get a text message, in all capital letters, “WHAT ABOUT DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL?” Exclamation, exclamation, exclamation. So Maddie will be glad you asked the question. Yes…

That was two years ago.

The arc of homophobia is long and it bends toward frustration.

William Greider, writing at The Nation last December, urged the Senate to change the cloture threshold. There’s nothing sacred about sixty votes. It’s been changed more than once during our history, the last being in 1975, when Democrats ran out of patience with Southern Democrats holding up civil rights legislation and reduced the threshold from 67 to 60.

If ever the Senate had reasonable cause to lower the threshold, it’s now. The 2007-2008 Senate set a record: 138 cloture motions to limit debate and head off filibusters. That’s double the number from ten years ago and Greider asks: “Who really believes McConnell will voluntarily give up his starring role as Senator No?”

So far, I don’t see any indication Democratic Senators are considering Greider’s solution, but something almost as good is in the offing. Obama has warned the GOP that Democrats are prepared to use a procedural move called reconciliation that’s possible on budgetary measures, allowing the Senate to pass a bill with only 51.

Upset with getting a GOP goose egg from the GOP, twice, on his stimulus bill, Obama warned Republican senators that they would not have veto power over health care legislation. Either pass something by mid-October or face reconciliation. And the same message went out to Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who has been holding out against reform in an effort to protect the student lending institutions in his home state.

Going around obstructionists could get habit forming. Who knows? Democrats might get to like it so much that they’d be willing to consider Greider’s (not very) outrageous suggestion. Ask anybody in the labor movement if they’d like to see it happen. Not only would card check pass, but Arlen Specter would be robbed of a chance to look heroic to the nutcases who might vote against him in a primary.

Would that Reid had the cojones to lead this charge.

In the Senate (both in the US Senate and here in Missouri), the senators debate a bill until there’s an agreement that the debate’s over. Only then a final vote can be taken. The vote to end debate (called a cloture vote) requires a supermajority, while a final vote generally requires only a simple majority to pass. A filibuster is an attempt to prevent a bill from passing by keeping it from ever coming to a vote.

Jimmy Stewart’s character in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” made the filibuster famous by singlehandedly stalling the entire Senate. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you view the bills being passed) the movie is misleading; a single Senator can’t hold up a bill that way. S/he needs 39 accomplices in the US Senate to go along – otherwise, the rest of the Senate would vote for cloture, bringing the debate to an end.

Nowadays, a full-fledged filibuster hardly ever happens, with all the images it conjures up of talking to all hours of the night reading from the Federalist Papers, recipe books, the Bible, and letters from home. The filibustering side threatens, and if they have the votes, the bill is usually withdrawn without so much as a cloture vote.

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