“I hope folks are not intent on hurting the Postal Service,” he said. Gary Peters, D-Mich., an author of the postal measure.Įarlier Monday, Peters told reporters he'd had reached out to Scott but hadn't learned why he was threatening the holdup.
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“Let’s help the American people and let’s show that the United States Senate knows how to get a job done," said Sen.
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Scott blocked the unanimous consent Schumer needed to change that to a vote on the full legislation. Schumer last week unwittingly scheduled a Monday evening vote limiting the time for debating the incomplete postal bill. House staff mistakenly sent an earlier version of the legislation that omitted a last-minute amendment.
The Postal Service bill already encountered an embarrassing hitch as it traveled the several hundred feet across the Capitol from the House to the Senate.
That can occur when senators of either party want to use the resulting delay to focus attention on an issue, or on themselves. That usually happens quickly and routinely for broadly supported bills.Įxcept when it doesn't. According to an apocryphal story on the Senate webpage, George Washington may have told Thomas Jefferson that the Founding Fathers designed the Senate to “cool” House bills, like saucers can be used to cool hot tea.Īll 100 senators must all agree to let the chamber begin debating legislation and vote on it. Senate bills have long faced delays, with reason. He accused Scott of using “a technical detail“ to delay a bipartisan measure and lamented that “the arcane rules of the Senate allow one person to stand up" and delay widely supported legislation. “What we heard is why people really are frustrated, angered at the United States Senate,” said Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The measure's supporters said it would damage the service and reaffirm voters' healthy dismay for Congress. Scott said his roadblock won’t hurt the Postal Service. The delay likely meant the Senate won’t approve the bill until after next week’s scheduled recess. “There is no looming deadline that will necessitate rushed action by the Senate," Scott said. He said it would “add more stress on our already enormous national debt with poor financial planning" and merely shift debt to Medicare, which has its own solvency problems. Rick Scott, R-Fla., blocked an initial vote Monday on the Postal Service bill, saying it needed to be reworked. A Blackburn spokesman said Monday she would drop her objections if she received a promise in writing that taxpayers' money wouldn't be spent on the pipes.
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Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., has threatened to delay the measure preventing a shutdown amid an outcry by conservative lawmakers and media opposing a federal program they say would buy crack pipes for drug abusers. T he other would avoid a government shutdown this weekend.
One measure would relieve much of the financially strapped Postal Service’s huge debt. There's no doubt Senate approval is inevitable, sooner rather than later.īut each is encountering problems - for now, let’s call them speed bumps - in a chamber designed to do exactly that, to the chagrin of supporters of whatever legislation gets ensnared in the chamber's procedural netherworld.
The House easily approved two bills last Tuesday with broad bipartisan support. WASHINGTON (AP) - No, the word “Senate” is not Latin for “It's never easy.” But sometimes it seems that way.
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