Are we back in the trenches again? Has no ground been gained?

The would-be nation-killers in the U.S. Senate have added a few amendments to S.1348 (the year of the Black Plague) and given it a new number, S.1649 (the year of the beheading of Charles I). Yesterday the Heritage Foundation website linked a pdf version of the bill and said this:

After it is read into the Senate calendar on Wednesday, the Majority Leader will be able to proceed to consider this legislation anew at any time; debate is likely to follow later this week, with a final vote very soon thereafter.

This schedule will afford lawmakers even less time for consideration and deliberation than they had before. It will deny them the various procedures long associated with America’s deliberative lawmaking process—hearings, testimony, committee debate and amendments, floor debate, and the possibility of further amendments. Instead, according to reports, this legislation will proceed based on an altogether new and expedited procedure designed for the sole purpose of forcing the bill’s many ill-conceived policies over legitimate minority objections.

So that’s it? Reid, McConnell, Kennedy et al. are once again going to push for passage after almost no real debate? But can they get cloture? Remember McConnell’s less than confident evaluation last Sunday on the bill’s chances.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 20, 2007 10:30 AM | Send