After weeks of intense debate and legislative jockeying, Democrats in the Senate succeeded in defeating a vote to end debate on the controversial Keystone Pipeline bill which is expected to be passed and ultimately vetoed by President Obama.
With a vote of 53-39, four Democrats joined Republicans in voting to end debate, but it ultimately failed the required 60 votes for cloture. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for an end to the shenanigans after more than 100 amendments have been filed on the bill in the two weeks since it was passed from the House.
“It’s about time to bring the Keystone debate to a positive conclusion and we’ll do that soon. We’ve had a lot of floor discussion, we’ve considered Democrat and Republican amendments. All in all, the last few weeks have been time well spent. The debate has been good for our country but tonight is our chance to notch another win for the middle class by supporting cloture and then actually passing this bipartisan jobs bill.”
McConnell slammed Democrats for hypocrisy in their argument for more debate on amendments, “This is really disappointing when you consider all that our friends on the other side have been saying about the filibuster for so many years. What’s most disappointing though is the apparent reasoning for the Keystone filibuster. The Democratic leadership is claiming that there haven’t been… enough opportunities to consider amendments.”
