Showdown vote set on Alito
on Jan 26, 2006 at 5:53 pm
The Senate’s Republican leader moved on Thursday afternoon to try to force a final vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to begin at 11 a.m. next Tuesday. In order to have the vote at that time, the Senate must approve before then a motion to cut off debate — a “cloture” motion — because some Democrats are planning to continue debating against the nomination..
Sen. Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican and majority leader, filed the cloture motion under Senate Rule XXII, and said a vote on it will come at 4:30 p.m. next Monday. That will be the showdown vote — it will take 60 votes to adopt the motion, and thus to shut off debate a day later. If that motion is approved, it would then take only 51 votes in the Senate to approve the nomination on Tuesday.
At this point, there is little likelihood that Democrats opposing Alito’s nomination will be able to gather the 41 votes needed to defeat the cloture motion. Already, three of the Senate’s 44 Democrats have said they will vote in favor of the nomination, and that probably means they would not vote to keep debate going. Those three are Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Here is an unofficial Senate report on the voting schedule as it developed on the Senate floor Thursday::
“At 3:10 p.m., Sen. Specter made a motion to proceed to a vote on the nomoination of Samuel Alito at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, January 30. Sen. Reid objected. [Specter’s motion was for unanimous consent; one senator, of course, can block such a motion.]
“Majority leader First filed cloture on Cal. # 486, The Nomination of Samuel Alito to be a Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The vote to invoke cloture will occur at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, January 30. If cloture is invoked, the Senate will proceed to vote on the nomination at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, January 31.”
It is not a coincidence that Senate leaders are hoping to have a final vote on Tuesday: that is just hours before President Bush is to make his State of the Union address to Congress, and Republican leaders want him to be able at that time to take note of a victory of the Alito nomination.
