Tag: US Senate

Posted on

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sets up Monday vote on ENDA

Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada

The Washington Blade has the details:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) officially set up a Monday vote for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act by filing cloture for the bill on the Senate floor Thursday evening.

Reid made the announcement on the Senate with little fanfare. He didn’t explicitly address ENDA during his remarks before he moved on to other business and adjourned the Senate until Monday at 2 pm.

Falz Shakir, a Reid spokesperson, estimated the cloture vote on ENDA would take place around 5:45 on Monday.

By filing cloture on the bill, Reid starts for the time period for when cloture vote will take place to enable the bill to move to the floor. After filing for cloture, the vote will take place after an intervening day and one hour pass. For a successful vote on cloture, 60 votes are required in the Senate.

After cloture is invoked, up to 30 hours of debate can take place before a vote happens on final passage, which requires a simple majority. But the vote for final passage could take place sooner if both parties agree to give up the time.

The bill currently is supported by all 55 members of the Democratic caucus, plus co-sponsors Republicans Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Kirk (R-IL). Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted for the bill in committee so they are considered supporters. One more vote is needed to get over the threshold.

Posted on

Senators Joe Manchin and Mark Pryor give their support to ENDA

It would appear the last two Democratic senators who had not made a commitment to ENDA have finally come on board with their support.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), the last Democratic holdout, says he’ll vote ‘yes’ on ENDA, according to a tweet from NYT reporter Jeremy Peters.

Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) said he’d vote for it last night.

After Manchin’s ‘yes’ vote leaves supporters just one vote shy of having the 60 votes needed to avoid a Republican-led filibuster.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman (who has a gay son) has indicated he’s leaning ‘yes’ but has not formally announced support.

Stay tuned.

Oh, and yeah, the bill has no chance in the GOP-led House. But still, it’s taken 20 years to get even a vote on the legislation in the Senate. So it’s a big deal.

(via Towleroad)

Posted on

Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida becomes 56th sponsor of ENDA

Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) has agreed to co-sponsor ENDA, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised yesterday will get a hearing before Thanksgiving. That leaves the bill just three votes short of the 60 needed to pass.

From Huffington Post:

There are now just two Democratic senators — Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) — who are not co-sponsors of the legislation, which would bar workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It is already illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, nationality, religion, age or disability.

Only two Republicans — Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) — have so far signed on as co-sponsors, although Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted for the bill in committee in July. With Nelson’s support, there are now 56 ENDA supporters currently in the Senate, and when Sen.-elect Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is sworn in on Friday, that number will rise to 57.

Among the GOP Senators targeted for support are John McCain, whose wife Cindy has signed a petition urging him to vote for the bill.

Beyond all this good news in the US Senate, ENDA has no chance of passing in the Republican controlled House.

Posted on

New Jersey: Newark Mayor Cory Booker becomes 4th African-American elected to US Senate

Cory Booker becomes the 4th African-American to be elected to the US Senate

Congratulations Senator-elect Cory Booker!

With 99% of the vote counted, Booker beat Republican Steve Lonegan by 11 points, 55% to 44%.

“If you voted for me, I will make your proud. If you didn’t vote for me, I will work every single day to earn your trust,” Booker said in his victory speech.

Booker becomes the first African-American elected to the Senate since Barack Obama, and only the fourth popularly elected black senator since Reconstruction.

Posted on

New Jersey: Steve Lonegan aide fired after making crass, homophobic comments about Cory Booker

Rick Shaftan, an aide to Steven Lonegran, was fired after making crude and homophobic remarks about opponent Cory Booker

A top aide to New Jersey Republican senate candidate Steve Lonegan has been fired after making comments about Lonegan’s opponent, Cory Booker.

Talking Points Memo has published a interview they conducted with the aide, Rick Shaftan, in which he made several crass and homophobic remarks.

In a profanity-filled assessment of the race delivered via phone Thursday, Rick Shaftan, a senior staffer and key strategist on Lonegan’s campaign, suggested voters would be turned off by Booker’s “odd” behavior including Twitter messages the Democrat sent to a stripper, that Shaftan described as “strange” and “like what a gay guy would say.”

“It was just weird. I mean, to me, you know, hey, if he said, ‘Hey, you got really hot breasts man, I’d love to suck on them.’ Then like, yeah, cool. But like, he didn’t say that,” Shaftan explained. “It was like kind of like, I don’t know, it was like what a gay guy would say to a stripper. It’s the way he was talking to her. It’s just like like there was no sexual interest at all. I don’t know. To me, if I was single and you know like some stripper was tweeting me, I might take advantage of the perks of the office, you know?”

Sounds like a very classy guy, huh?

Shaftan was informed of his termination later that day.

Steve Lonegan issued the following statement soon after: “His comments are distasteful and offensive, and his contract as a vendor for my campaign will be terminated immediately.”

The special election to fill the open US Senate seat will be held this Wednesday.

(via Towleroad)

Posted on

NJ: Mayor Cory Booker leads Senate race by double digits with one week to election


Newark Mayor Cory Booker

The New Jersey special election for U.S. Senate is just over a week away, and Newark Mayor Cory Booker still holds a double-digit lead over Republican Steve Lonegan.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely New Jersey Voters shows Booker with 53% of the vote to Lonegan’s 41%.

Posted on

GOP Senators Ted Cruz and Bob Corker in the most “I’m just curious” debate between two Republicans in a long time

From Dave Weigel over at Slate, we take a peek into the time-wasting, mind-numbing kind of “action” that goes on at the US Senate when time is ticking to keep our government up and running.

The “debate” on the continuing resolution to fund the government, like most Senate debates, has consisted of very little in the way of arguments on the floor. It’s more of a time-marking exercise, one that both sides have agreed to truncate in order to force a cloture vote today at 12:30 p.m.

Sen. Ted Cruz has attempted to use this time to prove that there’s grassroots support for the only-slightly-complicated plot of filibustering the CR so that Democrats can’t add back Obamacare funding via an amendment.

Yesterday afternoon Sen. Bob Corker — a Tennessee Republican who’s been outwardly dismissive of this strategy — started quizzing Cruz about how this was supposed to work, and why he voted for the cloture vote to start debate, and … look, just watch.

Apparently, there was a struggle for Democrats to not laugh out loud at how goofy this entire exchange was between two Republicans as time continued to tick by…

Posted on

Cory Booker giving the perfect answer regarding his sexuality

Cory Booker on All In with Chris Hayes regarding his U.S. Senate opponent Steve Lonegan’s homophobic comments regarding Booker’s sexuality:

First of all, this is the ridiculousness of this point. The question should not be whether you’re gay or straight, but the question should be, why are you asking the question in the first place?

The point I’m getting the chance to make right now — and I really, really want to drive this home —  is that we need to stop in America talking abut anybody in a public realm, besides what is important: the content of their character, the quality of their ideas, the courage within their hearts to serve others.

Here we have an opponent trying to say god awful things, literally saying, I believe a guy should be a guy. Almost like saying you are not a man if you’re gay. That is so extreme.

Let’s shine lights on this for a second and understand that my father taught me what manhood is about. And it’s not about whether you play football or enjoyed badminton. Being a man is about love. About kindness to others. About standing up for what’s right, about doing what’s important to do in the unfinished business of America.”

Posted on

New Jersey: Mayor Cory Booker leads GOP rival by 16 points in Senate race

According to a Monmouth University poll released this morning, Mayor Cory Booker has a 16 point lead against GOP rival Steve Lonegan, the former New Jersey chapter head of the far-right Americans For Prosperity.

Booker currently holds a 54% to 38% advantage over Lonegan among New Jerseyans likely to vote in the October 16 special election. Booker has solid support among Democratic voters (92%), while Lonegan musters support from 79% of his partisan base. Independent voters split, 43% for Booker to 41% for Lonegan. ooker gets more positive ratings from Republicans (27%) than Lonegan gets from Democrats (5%). They receive about the same “net” score from independents: +22 for Booker (49% favorable to 27% unfavorable) and +23 for Lonegan (37% favorable to 14% unfavorable).

Lonegan has all the expected positions: anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, anti-Obamacare, anti-gun control.

(via JMG)