No one likes Congress. We’ve all heard the comments.
“Congress is corrupt.”
“Poli-tics: many-blood sucking leeches.”
“If ‘con’ is the opposite of ‘pro’, what’s the opposite of progress? Congress!”
In my mind I’m thinking, “yeah, but those are just exaggerations.” Well, I think I just lost all hope in the system. Have you ever heard of Ben Nelson? He’s a senator from Nebraska, a Democrat. This gentleman sold his vote to invoke cloture, the one thing that will end a filibuster in the United States Senate.
~a little background info~
After a bill passes the House of Representatives, it goes to the Senate. The US Senate has a tradition of unlimited debate, meaning the minority party can keep debate going to prevent a vote, also known as a filibuster. To combat this, is something called cloture, and to “invoke cloture” there must be a 60% vote, which then results in a vote on the bill itself. There are 100 seats in the senate (2 from all 50 states), so 60% is 60 votes. Easy enough. The Democrats want the health care bill to pass the Senate. In order to vote to end debate to vote on the actual bill, they needed that 60%. They had 59%, and needed another. More...