Reply #11: It's The Problem Of A Representative Government

[KharmaTrain]

This is skating on thin ice but the balance between local interests and party disicipline tend to get lost when votes...especially important one are taken.

For many of the Senators, their votes were no-brainers since their vested state or district interests weren't directly tied to some provision of this bill. Again, no pass on the procedure here...this wasn't just snuck in, it was re-written after it was ram through the re-write session...I mean as sleazy and backhanded as Frist and Stevens could pull it off.

Senator Landrieu is a great example of a heroine one moment, a "DINO" the next. Her work in taking the lead for keeping the pressure on getting Federal aid to Louisana and championing the people over the special interests is admirable. Meantime she'll vote with the oil interests and military as they provide a large number of "swing votes" in what is still considered a heavily Repugnican state.

This is a game of Chinese checkers as we know that if this vote were to be on a woman's right to chose or pushing for an investigation into this regime's spying, ALL those Senators will be on the right side of the issue. How they'd vote if the overall vote was closer is a guessing game...again that's where your "Whip" (let's make a deal) comes in. But since this didn't happen, we'll never know. Hopefully this kills that provision...Frist needs to get a military spending bill or boooosh runs the risk of his war running out of money and getting yet another embarassment (one of many this year in the Senate).