Remember: Any Vote To Advance The Health Care Bill Is A Vote For The Health Care Bill
One aspect of votes in the Senate that a lot of Americans may not be aware of is that any final bill must survive two votes before it passes in the chamber. The first vote is called a cloture vote and requires 60 votes to pass. The cloture vote is a vote to end debate. If a bill doesn’t get a successful cloture vote it is considered to have been filibustered.
The second vote is a straight up-or-down vote that actually passes the bill. It only requires a simple majority.
This is important to remember as the health care bill goes to the Senate. A trick a lot of politicians like to play in order to fool their constituents into thinking they didn’t really vote for something is to give a bill a “yes” vote on cloture only to turn around and vote against the final vote. Because the final vote requires less support than the cloture vote, Senators who might be in hot water for voting for a particular vote can vote for it on cloture but then vote against it on final passage while still seeing the bill pass. Thus, they can go back to their constituents and say “see, I voted against the bill!”
The problem is that they didn’t, really, which is the point of this ad from Republicans targeting Senator Byron Dorgan on that very issue:
Remember, a vote for cloture is a vote for the bill. If Dorgan truly opposes this bill, he shouldn’t be voting for cloture or for the bill. Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, North Dakota News, Politics
