The conventional wisdom has been that this first cloture vote is a done deal because the Senate leadership has been wheeling and dealing behind the scenes. The way it works is that they go to a senator and offer to allow a vote on their Amendment IF -- and only if -- that senator agrees to vote for cloture on the "clay pigeon" strategy. [[NA--cloture-votes-for-amendments! At least offered--it doesn't seem like it was universally accepted...]]And:My source tells me that this has left a sour taste in the mouth of a number of Republican senators who are upset that Mitch McConnell is cooperating with Harry Reid to curtail the rights of Republican senators. Moreover, there's a growing fear that a dangerous precedent is being set here that could be used against Republican senators again and again as long as they're in the minority. After all, if the "clay pigeon" strategy is used against conservatives on the immigration issue, who's to say it won't also be used against them on any number of issues in the future? According to my source, this is causing a lot of nervousness amongst Republican senators and it has Mitch McConnell acting very defensively behind closed doors about working with Harry Reid to roll members of his own caucus. Because of this issue, my source tells me that the vote for the "clay pigeon" strategy is no longer a slam dunk and it is possible that the "grand bargainers" may not be able to get 60 votes to put the bill on the floor as a new bill. If that turns out to be the case, the bill is dead.
In other words, there will be a cloture on Tuesday, then there will be 30 hours of debate, and then there will be a second cloture vote. If the 2nd cloture vote passes, the amendments will then be voted on, and then we'll have the final vote on the bill.And:So technically, a Senator could vote for the cloture the first time and then change his/her mind and vote against cloture the second time, but that would seem to be unlikely, because the amendments won't have been put to a vote.
My source tells me that he thought the amnesty proponents definitely had the upper hand last week, but now, he thinks the momentum may be swinging back the other way. He also said that he thinks the best chance to stop the bill will be on the initial cloture vote. He said that he's hoping that a coalition of conservatives who think this is a bad bill, liberals who think this bill is too tough, and Republican senators worried about losing minority rights because of the "clay pigeon" strategy will get together and block the bill.
