UPDATE: The Senate will STILL vote on the Feingold and Levin Iraq war proposals tomorrow. This agreement doesn't change that fact. And the result of those votes could influence the House-Senate conference.
McJoan, over at Daily Kos, just explained it thusly:
Thus, a very strong vote for Feingold-Reid, as strong as the vote for the McGovern amendment in the House last week, could help shape and strengthen what comes out of the conference on the supplemental.Okay, now for what just happened. Senators Reid and McConnell, the Senate Democratic and Republican leaders, have just jointly introduced a placeholder Iraq war supplemental bill that will likely be voted on Thursday. In essence, the plan is to pass a generic shell of a bill in the Senate so that we can expedite the process and move the negotations to the House-Senate conference. As you may know, the way a bill becomes a law is that the House and Senate each pass a bill, then a group of House and Senate members get together and reconcile the differences in the House and Senate bills, merging them into one bill that then goes back to the House and Senate for one final vote. If that conference report passes the House and Senate one more time, it then goes to the president for his signature or veto. The trick is this: The House and Senate don't just merge the two different bills, they negotiate back and forth and craft a combined bill based on their consensus.
So, what happened here is that Reid and McConnell, I think, both realize that there is going to have to be a negoatiation with the House, Senate, Democrats, Republicans and the White House in order to get a bill passed. And why waste time having a Senate negotiation only to repeat the entire thing when you get to the House-Senate conference. This way, the Senate passes a shell of a bill, as I call it, and we leapfrog to the conference with the House where the real negotiations begin.
Not sure what I think of this, but it's interesting.
Just got the following statement from Senator Reid's office:
REID: SENATE LEADERS AGREE ON PATH TO EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL CONFERENCEAnother update: Reid and Pelosi are threatening to keep Congress in town during the Memorial Day recess if the Republicans aren't willing to negotiate in good faith:
Conference Goal Remains to Fully Fund Troops and Change Course in Iraq
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the following statement today:
“Democrats in Congress remain committed to changing course in Iraq and it will remain at the forefront of our agenda until the President and his Republican allies in Congress finally heed the will of the American people and work with us to bring the war to a successful and responsible end.
“On Thursday, the Senate will vote on a resolution that expresses our continuing support for our troops and will serve as a bipartisan vehicle that will allow us to move to conference. The details of the final emergency supplemental bill will be negotiated in the House-Senate conference. It is imperative that we get to conference as quickly as possible, which this resolution allows us to do.
“The American people deserve to know that Democrats will remain committed in conference to the goals of fully funding our troops and changing course in Iraq. That is why we will also have two additional Iraq votes on Wednesday, separate from the supplemental. Those measures, authored by Senators Levin and Feingold, are important to our overall debate. They will provide strong guidance to our conferees and help shape the conference negotiations we have ahead of us.”
Washington, DC— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi today issued the following statement:
“Democrats are committed to fully funding our troops and changing course in Iraq. In the coming days, we will work to send the President a bill that does just that. We hope the President and Congressional Republicans will negotiate in good faith so that we can provide our troops the funding they need and an effective strategy by next week. If they do not, we are prepared to work through the Memorial Day district work period to accomplish our goals.
