In 1980 the Senate helped the Federal Government to a huge chunk of state land. They did this by voting to double the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, bringing it up to 19 million acres. That's 19 million acres not available for private property, for business, for use by the citizens of this country- 19 million acres of land in the Federal stranglehold.
Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens voted in favor of that bill, but only, he says, because of a deal he struck with Senators Jackson of Washington and Tsongas of Massachusetts. That deal was that they would support permission to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Tsongas was diagnosed with cancer in 1984, and he didn't seek reelection. His health improved, and he later sought the Democratic nomination for President, losing to Bill Clinton. Tsongas died in 1997.
Jackson died in office in 1984, after serving for thirty years.
Stevens claims that the Senate needs to keep the promises made by these men and allow oil wells in portions of the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve. I think he's right about drilling for oil, wrong about the Senate needing to honor a deal they didn't make. Maybe Stevens should have been careful about guarding the resources of his state.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, and it makes for unfulfilled promises, too. Be careful, my children, what sort of compromises you make in life and with whom.
He tried to force the Senate's hand by attaching his oil drilling bill to the Defense Spending bill. He hoped the Democrats would fear the bad publicity and be unwilling to vote against the Defense bill.
I'm almost never in favor of attaching a totally unrelated ammendment to a bill just to get it passed, but this was particularly muddle-headed of Stevens. The Democrats don't get bad publicity when they've earned it, and the certainly aren't going to get any bad publicity from the press over this little bit of political theater.
Democrats called his bluff, and Republicans, including Bill Frist, weren't united enough to overcome a filibuster. They fell four votes short. The Defense Bill has been voted down, will probably be withdrawn and resubmitted without the oil drilling attachment.
AP Article here
Note, even if ALL the Republicans had voted for the bill, they could not have overcome the filibuster. There are only 55 republicans. Only 4 Democrats voted to break the filibuster. 55+4 does not make 60.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, Bill Frist's no vote was a procedural move to allow him to bring this back up.
From the story linked in the post:
ReplyDelete"Drilling backers fell four votes short of getting the required 60 votes to avoid a threatened filibuster of the defense measure over the oil drilling issue. Senate leaders were expected to withdraw the legislation so it could be reworked without the refuge language. The vote was 56-44."
Yes?
ReplyDelete52 Republicans and 4 Democrats voted to end the filibuster.
If all of the Republicans had voted for it, and only 4 Democrats, they still would not have had the votes.