National Reciprocity Fails

Reciprocity has enough votes to pass, but fails a filibuster-proof majority.

The vote on the Thune amendment was today, and it went 58-39 for passage. Short of the number required to break a filibuster. Since the amendment failed to garner 60 votes, the amendment was withdrawn.

We now have a roll-call vote on who supported the amendment, and as soon as the roll-call is posted to either Thomas or the Senate website, I will cross-post here. The good news: proponents got more votes than expected. The bad news: some of those votes may have been political cover for the upcoming 2010 election. As in..."See, I voted for gun rights so support me!", even though the vote was meaningless due to the pre-conditions placed upon the Senate by the leadership for the vote to take place at all.

If your Senator voted in favor of this amendment, please take the time to call them and thank them for the vote. Let them know that you are watching and keeping score. If your Senator voted against this amendment, let them know that you were watching and were disappointed in their vote against your Second Amendment rights.

Additionally, if your Senator voted against, why in Hell aren't you doing everything in your power to defeat them? Bringing home the PORK shouldn't be a sufficient reason to keep some of these bastards in office...

Keep pressuring them. Keep their phones lit up 24/7 until they realize that you will no longer sit idly by while they continue to obstruct and erode your Constitutional Rights.

Because, the alternative is something that no sensible person wishes to contemplate...

Newbius
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*** UPDATE ***

The roll call has been posted. Thanks to David Codrea for putting it online. You can see the vote HERE.

I spoke to a representative in Senator Thune's office about the vote. According to Thune's office, all votes in the Senate require 60 to pass (she said Constitutional requirement, which is not true, it is just the reality of the current rules of engagement). Thune's office did not know if they would be able to garner the other 2 votes if the amendment is introduced again, and also did not know if he was going to re-introduce the measure as either a stand-alone measure (unlikely) or as part of another mandatory appropriations bill (possible, depending on circumstances).

Looking at the vote, however, 2 Republican Senators could have stood for the Citizen and voted for the amendment instead of against. The Senators in question are Voinovich (R-OH) and Lugar (R-IN). These two are all it would have taken to pass National Reciprocity through the Senate (arguably the tougher body to pass legislation through).

We can call their offices and thank them for their failure to support the Second Amendment, and remind them that we will score this vote at their next election. It is the least we can do...

Newbius