Reply #5: The switch of votes dependent on who is President might actually

[karynnj]

reflect who controls the Senate and whose bill is being amended. Where I have seen votes - like Kerry's here and Kerry's and Kennedy's in 2007 - is when the Democrats controlled the Senate and it is their bill. If they know that passing this will sink the bill it is on - they will vote against it - even though they were co-sponsors of Dorgan's bill (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d110,d110:1:./t... |/home/LegislativeData.php?n=BSS;c=110|# ) that was for this and if one ran for President arguing for it.

If it really dooms the bill, then in reality the amendment is actually a very cruel game - where the outcome would NEVER be that it becomes law. (Do I think Vitter would do that? - well, yeah ) That is why I pointed to many liberal Senate leaders - Kerry, Harkin, Durbin, Murray. It looks as though they voted as a block to prevent that.

It is important to recognize that this is NOT a standalone bill where every concern is on the amendment alone. It could be that with it in, they are certain that the two NJ and DE Senators - all Democrats - would vote to filibuster the final vote on the agriculture bill - in addition to enough Republicans. (Menendez and Carper were shameless on the Finance committee when the healthcare bill was debated - strongly protecting Pharma.)