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Unemployment Extension Vote Live-Blog
October 27, 2009 - by Donny Shaw
With the jobless rate at 9.8 percent and rising, Senate Democrats have scheduled a big vote this afternoon to move forward with their bill to extend unemployment insurance benefits (H.R. 3548), which has been blocked by Republicans for the past month. I’ll be live-blogging the debate and the vote here and I invite you to help me out in comments section with capturing all the key quotes and information. The debate is scheduled to begin at around 5:30 pm ET with a vote taking place at 6:00, and it will be televised live on C-SPAN 2 (live online video here).
In the past month, Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] has repeatedly tried to speed up passage of the bill under a unanimous consent agreement. But Republicans objected each time and said that they were seeking changes related to the bill’s funding (and a few changes that are totally unrelated). More details on the process so far can be found on the OpenCongress Benefits Wiki.
Today’s vote is to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to an official debate of the bill. Invoking cloture requires 60 votes, and if it is approved the bill will move to the Senate floor for votes on amendments. Another cloture vote will likely be necessary to end the debate and bring the bill to a final up-or-down vote. The process will become clearer as the debate picks up, and I’ll be trying to keep track of it all here. Stay tuned!
4:30 p.m.: Reuters is reporting that bipartisan senators are very close to a deal for extending the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers. No specifics out on the deal yet, but apparently it may be voted on tonight as an amendment to the unemployment bill. If it’s added, it is going to slow down the House’s action on approving the Senate’s amended unemployment bill.
4:47 p.m.: Senators are filtering back into the chamber and starting to give floor speeches on the unemployment bill. Sen. Cardin (D-MD) is up with a map of his state explaining why the Senate is changing the House bill to apply the extension to every state. Maryland’s jobless rate is a little lower than the national average — it’s around 7% — but individual counties within the state have rate as high as 10.8%. Under the House bill, those counties would not have been given the extension while a county in another state with a lower rate but a statewide average above 8.5% would get the extension.
5:03 p.m.: Here’s a link to the roll call details on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the UI benefits extension that the Senate passed last November. The motion passed 89-6 back then when the jobless rate was at 6.7%.
5:15 p.m.: Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) is up for what is probably the last speech before the cloture debate begins: Approximately 150,000 people have run out of unemployment benefits since the Republicans began delaying this bill 3 weeks ago. “We have the power and the ability to act. Let’s do it!” “Republican response to helping the unemployed is ‘No!’”
5:30 p.m.: OK, the debate on the cloture motion on the motion to proceed is officially beginning and it’s time for opening statements. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) is up first. “Total cost for our bill $2.4 billion, payed for with an extension of the federal unemployment tax.”
5:40 p.m.: Via OpenCongress user JMatzelle57, breaking news:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) announced this afternoon, Tuesday October 27, that an extension of the $8,000 first-time homebuyer credit and more generous net operating loss carry-back rules for money-losing businesses will not be brought to the Senate floor for a vote. The unemployment insurance extension is still on the calendar and will be brought up as a stand-alone measure. HAI will provide updates as more information is released from Capitol Hill.
We’ll see if that’s accurate…
5:47 p.m.: Sen. Dorgan (D-ND) up: “Some of the people who are stalling the unemployment extension benefits were the same ones who rushed to the starting line last fall to see if they couldn’t hand hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks that ran this country into a ditch.”
5:50 p.m.: Really? No Republicans are going to speak on extending unemployment benefits? Vote’s in 10 minutes, it’s looking that way.
6:00 p.m.: The vote is underway …and it’s impossible to hear on C-Span how anyone is voting.
6:20 p.m.: Vote’s not quite over, but they’re well past 60 “ayes.” Here’s my running tally of the “noes” (13 so far):
Sen. John Barrasso [R, WY]
Sen. Christopher Bond [R, MO]
Sen. Jim Bunning [R, KY]
Sen. Thomas Coburn [R, OK]
Sen. John Cornyn [R, TX]
Sen. Jim DeMint [R, SC]
Sen. Michael Enzi [R, WY]
Sen. Lindsey Graham [R, SC]
Sen. Orrin Hatch [R, UT]
Sen. James Inhofe [R, OK]
Sen. Mike Johanns [R, NE]
Sen. Jefferson Sessions [R, AL]
Sen. David Vitter [R, LA]
Sen. Roger Wicker [R, MS]
6:26 p.m.: And that does it. Final vote tally is 87-13. The motion to proceed is agreed to.
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Comments
Displaying 181-210 of 344 total comments.
13 no
HUH? Someone said earlier ‘no’. Have to check.
This could be it folks.
i thought they said 13 no
Where does it go from here?
ah maybe I can eat something other than ramen noodles soon no money for over a month these guys are way to slow
Now Senator Reid should motion for a cloture vote on the bill itself. If it took cloture to proceed, it wouldn’t be surprising that cloture will be needed to get it PASSED. If they reach an agreement before it “ripens”, fine. But… just in case.
I have to write and say “thank you” now. At least we have movement on this constipated process. LOL
Now how long can they drag this out ???
OK NOW WHAT WERE IN, BUT NOW WHAT???
These pigs are ridiculous. I CANNOT believe this matter has taken so long. Its nauseating. Sorry if I spelled things wrong, hunger makes me crazy.
It is at the top of this blog!!!!!!
thank you. now what futher steps do we have to go through in oder to get our money..
There is still a couple hurdles though but I beleive it will happen amen…
JAY DUB……YOU SAID IT ALL YOUR 27 YEARS OLD AND HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT….PLEASE JUST ZIP IT!!!!
You keep running your mouth and don’t know what you are talking about. Many people are looking for jobs, they have applied at as you call them fast food joints. Fast food chains will not take a chance on hiring a person with a higher education at this time because they fell that the will quit if something is found with higher pay. With that being said at this time people will take any time of position. It’s a job. Everyone don’t have experience in all fields therfore it is hard. So you need to watch your mouth on how you lower people. These people must have pride about them self they were working. Or they would not be getting unemployment in the first place. Instead of you bad mouthing you should be praying for them and your self. If you got a job you could lose it in a blink of an eye. Thank God that you were bless with a position and pary that it does not go under.
My Google education says next they vote in the seante, then the house votes, Obama already said he’ll sign it. So hopefully we can start claiming soon. Sucks it’s not retro though, I think it should be – out of the dirty 13’s hide.
if republicans were in office, this bill would never have passed. think about what would happen if that were the case. open your eyes.
What does all this mean..I ve been follwing this for weeks and Im still lost
My state of OHIO won’t allow me to keep claiming it says no current weeks can be claimed. They told me when I called not to file once I ran out of extensions they would contact me if and when this bill passed. I will of course be calling them the day it is signed by Obama so they don’t forget about me. I also was told it isn’t retro…Where did you see it was?
Remember the “The List of 13” when the next elections start. Remove every last one of them from office. In the mean time support passage of the bill by signing the online petition: There are over 2000 signatures already….PASS IT ON!!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/pass-the-unemployment-bill
Now that the US Senate has voted to extend unemployments ! does the House have to vote on this bill again?
I agree. They should have went on tonight with voting in the extensions. What’s on the agenda tomarrow? Is unemployment first, untill passed? Does anyone know? I can’t find an answer.If anyone has somewhere to check, please share that link with us.
Hey Donny
Is that it from you? Do you have any insight to what happens next or at least what’s likely to happen.
I like your style Billines! They’ve got to understand who they work for-US….
there is no verbage for retroactive. although i wish there was. me and 400,000 other americans wish this bill would be retro, alothough its not.
hey bassmaster, aint you the one that was so foul on the other site? some of the things you said were very bad!
Ignore Annoyamus (lol!) they are what we call a Troll. And the way to get rid of a Troll is to is to not respond it it. We call that "Don’t feed the Troll.
did the ting pass yet or will it pass this week???
To quote BCMKY
“The question is do the GOP want to help the American People or use us as political pawns….They are waking up a sleeping giant…. The American People..” I agree and feel they should have more respect for the American worker. They better understand, we are the voice and we don’t turn our back on each other, we are the people that helped build this country, be careful who you step on..