Roll Call Underway on Alaska Drilling

So far, 3 Democrats have voted for drilling:

Inouye
Landrieu
Nelson (NE)

Damnit.

She had no choice...They assigned the Hurricane Relief Bill onto this Defense Appropriations Bill.

She had to...

He knows that republicans can easily win Louisiana and we need to protect that senate seat. She's a damn good democrat in a really tough position

math holds up.

He must have got my email telling him he lost my vote for voting yes last time.

But they have always support drilling in ANWR...

Landrieu and Byrd I understand...oil and coal states...

had an agreement to support each other's "pet" bills.

it's weird, indigenous people from both Alaska and Hawaii maintain political ties, and the corporatists and militarists maintain political ties.

They have several bases - a lot of defense funding goes there, which benefits the politicians who depend on defense contractor donations in campaigns...

that's my guess, anyway. I lived there for a few years in high school in the sixties, while dad served his two tours in Viet Nam. Military was very important there at that time, i sense that's still the case currently.

He supports ANWR and Stevens supports legislation to give a kind of home rule status to native Hawaiians.

:cry:

OK. I won't cry yet. :-)

Campaigning against Walter Mondale he pledged to oppose it...but now that he is the midwest lasp dog for Bush I am sure he is weasling out of it

Sorry to disappoint you.

Whether you agree with it or not...he doesn't flip flop much...sometimes to his own detriment.

He has been strongly pro-environment his whole career, and he has said many times he would support a filibuster of this!

60 votes needed to pass

good for him!

unless someone switches their vote.

but I think it will be 3 or so votes short.

Still be ok...

We lost 5 Democrats and got 2 Republicans...would make it 58-42 if no one else defects

Coal state!

Unfortunately I do not have streaming access...if he voted No that's all the better!!!

Senator Byrd spoke very strongly against including drilling in ANWR in the defense bill, altho he has voted for ANWR drilling outside the defense bill. I did not hear his vote.

When it comes to cloture it's very common for one of the party leaders to vote opposite of what the rest of the group does especially if they're on the losing end of the stick.

If they want to revisit this vote then someone who voted "NO" has to make the request to open it up I believe to say they wanted to reconsider. Now knowing that we're solid on 41 of the democrats and probably Chafee, that means that Frist would either hope to get DeWine to reopen or just switch his vote at the end so he could do it himself.

If the vote was down to 50-49 with the democrats in the lead he would have voted with the republicans and let Cheney cast the final ballot for the win.

Can they do that?

I'm not sure.

Did I hear that right? What's that?

Although, they are three votes short of cloture, and it would be difficult, I would think. Senators Chafee and Dewine are up for re-election in 2006 and their states would take a very dim view if they were responsible for letting ANWR be passed by sticking it in the defense bill.

It is the defense appropriations bill, after all.

Take that you rotten snakes!

How convenient for the Republicans!

Now that the bill has failed why don't we use the money that would have been spent on the drilling to fund alternative energy sources...

I can dream can't I?

It just has the ridiculous drilling amendment tacked on in norder to extort yes votes from those who would otherwise resist drilling.

it's slimey as hell.