Letters to the Editor
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@openmouthedfoot
The Republicans submitted a motion to bypass the amendments and go directly to the (no good rotten lousy very bad) Intelligence Committee version of the FISA bill.
This was essentially a call for cloture on the original bill. If it had passed, we'd have gone directly to a vote on the original bill - but only after the thirty-hour period for debate that always results from a call for cloture.
If they hadn't done this, Reid would have pushed through rapid up or down votes on all the amendments, held sessions through the weekend to get through the obligatory thirty hour period for Dodd's filibuster of the IC bill itself, and we'd now be seeing the cloture vote on the bill itself, followed by passage and the giveaway to Bush.
The Republicans didn't want to allow Reid to capitulate on everything. This was either because they wanted to have a "Dems have left us defenseless against Obama" club to swing, or because they didn't want to take the miniscule chance that DiFi's amendment would pass, and the further miniscule chance that the FISA court would actually secretly rule against the telecoms.