Senate Nuclear Option - who's on the fence?

NUCLEAR FENCE-SITTERS.

Jeff’s count from last week of the remaining swing Republicans on the nuclear option should be amended slightly in light of this New York Times piece and this analysis from The Carpetbagger. The sure no votes are: Lincoln Chafee, John McCain, and (this is perhaps not utterly 100 percent sure but it’s damned close) Olympia Snowe. The one fence-sitter who’s now pretty much off the fence in favor of pulling the trigger is Dick Lugar. That leaves five unknowns:

* Susan Collins
* Chuck Hagel
* Lisa Murkowski
* Arlen Specter
* John Warner

The Carpetbagger points out that both Collins and Warner appear to be leaning against the option. If they voted no, Democrats would need one more vote to prevent it from happening: As Jeff says, for Murkowski to buck the leadership and White House so soon after having used their help in November would be quite odd. Similarly, one would assume this is a decision that Specter feels obligated to accede to after the gauntlet he ran during his ascension to the Judiciary chairmanship several months back. Does that leave Hagel as the possible key vote? One wild card to consider is Mike DeWine, who hasn’t been on anyone’s swing vote shortlist but has refused to disclose his decision publicly.

Bill Frist’s presidential whims, combined with his reliably clumsy negotiating approach, are putting an awful lot of Republicans in an awfully unwelcome position.

--Sam Rosenfeld

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006191

or was his growing of a spine in the Bolton hearings just a fluke? i don't know much about him . . .

Others have said that he occasionally shows an independent streak - I'd say this Bolton thing was not about him standing in opposition to the repubs but rather someone who looked at what was going on, the allegations about Bolton caused him to have a concern about rushing the vote forward, and that he thouoght that it was reasonable to hold off the vote and do some addditional investigation. It doesn't mean that he's going to vote against Bolton when the vote comes, it just meant that he wanted more time to review the allegations and didn't think the vote needed to be rushed through.

I think he was standing up for himself, not standing in opposition to the repubs or Bolton.

He's not someone we can count on.

On the nuclear option, since he hasn't stated that he's against it and he's not sitting on the fence, I'd have to say that probably means he's agreed to go along with Frist.

Freshman Senator from Georgia who commented on the minority party in the Iraqi government's "secret weapon," the filibuster.

and he already knows the count. That's the only thing holding it back right now, in my opinion.

He almost CAN'T bring it up for a vote unless he knows he has the votes to pass it - I mean, that would just be beyond embarassing for him if he brought it up and it went down because some unsuspected members of his own party voted against it, caused it to go down


I'd LOVE to see that, but not a snowball's chance in h---