Saturday Night. Do You Know Where Your Senator Is?

(I was going to send this to 100,000 of my closest friends -- OK, more like 18 -- but in the end, I refrained).

Wikipedia has this to say about the U.S. Senate: "The Senate is a more deliberative body than the House of Representatives because the Senate is smaller and its members serve longer terms, allowing for a more collegial and less partisan atmosphere that is somewhat more insulated from public opinion than the House."

If only, if only.  The reality is that with the healthcare bill, the Senate is following the same destructive path that the House did a few short weeks ago.

You and I may be thinking of Thanksgiving, but on this Saturday, our friends in the Senate are getting ready to vote on a closure measure that would strangle any meaningful debate on the ObamaCare legislation.  A vote for closure would not only severely limit debate, it would also prevent a pro-life amendment from being advanced, since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's 2,074-page draft guarantees federal funding of abortion.

Here's the latest from National Review:
"The debate on Reid's bill is set to begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, with the cloture vote to come around 8 p.m. If it passes, then the Senate will likely take a week off for Thanksgiving and come back to begin the floor debate on Monday, November 30..."
...
Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.): "Saturday's vote is an abortion vote," he says. "We often use arcane procedures in the Senate that just lose people. Things can get complicated on the process side here, so let me be clear: This cloture vote is a make-or-break vote on the pro-life issue. Reid's bill has language that includes a mechanism for public funding and a significant extension of abortion coverage. If this bill moves to the floor with 60 votes this weekend, the only way to change it is to get 60 votes again. That will be very tough to achieve once the bill goes to the floor. A vote to proceed is thus a vote for extending abortion coverage."

If you'd like to contact your U.S. Senator, take a look at this website.

God be with you,
________

P.S.
I had never heard of closure, so here's some details from wikipedia:

After cloture has been invoked, the following restrictions apply:

• No more than thirty hours of debate may occur.^[8]
• No Senator may speak for more than one hour.
• No amendments may be moved unless they were filed on the day in between the presentation of the petition and the actual cloture vote.
• All amendments must be relevant to the debate.
• Certain procedural motions are not permissible.
• The presiding officer gains additional power in controlling debate.
• No other matters may be considered until the question upon which cloture was invoked is disposed of.

(Originally written 11/21/09)