Senator Harken signs on to S.752, the Fair Elections Now Act. Who'll step up next, Senators?

[flpoljunkie]

S.752

Title: A bill to reform the financing of Senate elections, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Durbin, Richard (introduced 3/31/2009) Cosponsors (7)
Related Bills: H.R.1826
Latest Major Action: 3/31/2009 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration.
COSPONSORS(7), ALPHABETICAL : (Sort: by date)

Sen Boxer, Barbara - 9/15/2009
Sen Cantwell, Maria - 1/28/2010
Sen Dodd, Christopher J. - 5/14/2009
Sen Feingold, Russell D. - 7/9/2009
Sen Gillibrand, Kirsten E. - 5/18/2009
Sen Harkin, Tom - 1/29/2010
Sen Specter, Arlen - 3/31/2009

http://thomas.loc.gov

[gateley]

1. Embarrassing question, but does Biden get to co-sponsor or sign on since

he's the President of the Senate? He's always been pro=election reform, so I know he'd be behind this.

And another question -- can the VP vote on ANY bill, or only when a tie-breaker is needed?

Thanks.

And this is GREAT -- It's waaayyyyy past due. Hope it does well and passes quickly!

[unblock]

2. he presides over the senate and breaks ties, but he is not a member of the senate

so he can't do any of those other things.

his "vote" is only relevant for breaking ties anyway, and his position is invariably the white house's position, which is nearly always publicly known, and "sponsorship" is only to tie one's name to a bill, so you can support it (or so you can claim credit for it) which the white house / vice-president can do effectively enough just by making issuing a press release.

[gateley]

5. Thanks -- I should have thought it through about him not being a Senator

any more :banghead: And thanks for the clarification on 'sponsoring' a bill. :hi:

[progressoid]

3. The repub response will be like their HCR argument.

"What the big hurry? Everthing seems to be working just fine." :eyes:

[flpoljunkie]

4. Their usual argument is that taxpayers do not want to fund elections. If taxpayers only understood-

how our representatives sell their souls and our for campaign contributions to run those damn tv ads for their re-election campaigns!

We'd be a lot better off, and government would cost a lot less, if they worked primarily for us, and not to please their corporate benefactors.