{"id":8299,"date":"2005-12-21T11:38:47","date_gmt":"2005-12-21T18:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/12\/21\/legislative-blackmail.html"},"modified":"2005-12-21T11:38:47","modified_gmt":"2005-12-21T18:38:47","slug":"legislative_bla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/12\/21\/legislative_bla.html","title":{"rendered":"“Legislative blackmail”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Playing political games with legislation to attach unpopular and unrelated items onto bills that are otherwise highly attractive (or politically dangerous to object to) is a bipartisan game, and none-the-less obnoxious for all that. It’s quid pro quo<\/em> at its most glaring, and even when it’s used for something I approve of, I find myself irked by it.<\/p>\n

So kudos for those in the Senate who stood up to Alaska’s Ted Stevens and stood by their fillibuster guns, blocking Stevens’ latest installment on trying to open up ANWR for drilling<\/a> by attaching the permission to a “must-pass” bill that included funding the Defense Department and benefits for Hurricane Katrina victims and support for poor families buying heating oil (that those three are on the same bill is also annoying, but …).<\/p>\n

he Senate blocked oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge Wednesday, rejecting a measure that had been put into a must-pass defense spending bill in an attempt to garner wider support.<\/p>\n

Drilling supporters fell four votes short of getting the required 60 votes to avoid a threatened filibuster of the defense spending legislation. Senate leaders were expected to withdraw the legislation so it could be reworked without the refuge language. The vote was 56-44.<\/p>\n

Even if I thought ANWR drilling was the greatest thing since sliced bread (it’s not), I’d be torqued by this kind of shenanigan. I’m pleased that it didn’t pay off … this time.<\/p>\n

If ANWR drilling is such a clearly critical item for national security, then bring it up for a direct vote, and let those who oppose it take the political fallout from that. If it can only be passed by making it part of a “must-pass” bill, then clearly there’s little consensus that it’s that critical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Playing political games with legislation to attach unpopular and unrelated items onto bills that are otherwise highly attractive (or politically dangerous to object to) is a bipartisan game, and none-the-less…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":135783,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/09\/everyone-gets-offshore-oil-drilling-except-seems-florida.html","url_meta":{"origin":8299,"position":0},"title":"Everyone gets offshore oil drilling … except, it seems, Florida","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 9-Jan-18 8:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"After Trump's Interior Secretary Zinke announced that pretty much everywhere would now be open to offshore oil drilling (and it was also announced that a bunch of regulations put in place around offshore drilling in the aftermath of the BP oil disaster a few years back), there was a lot\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/unnamed-42.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3872,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/19\/not_the_answer.html","url_meta":{"origin":8299,"position":1},"title":"Not the ANsWeR","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Mar-03 5:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Remarkably enough, the Senate has voted down ANWR drilling by a vote of 52-48. Despite active lobbying by Dick Cheney (according to drilling supporters, though the VP's office has denied...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8738,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/27\/the_world_turne.html","url_meta":{"origin":8299,"position":2},"title":"The World Turned Upside Down","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 27-Apr-06 3:23pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Even though the whole \"Conservative Republicans are Skinflints; Liberal Democrats are Spendthrifts\" meme has been largely (and shockingly) discarded in just five short years -- maybe a bit more if...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1976,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/03\/30\/i_suppose_it_de.html","url_meta":{"origin":8299,"position":3},"title":"I suppose it depends on what you mean by “harmful” …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 30-Mar-02 9:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A new report by the radical fringe environmental group which calls itself the \"US Geological Survey\" indicates that drilling in the ANWR would harm caribou herds, snow geese flocks, musk...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13537,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/19\/alaskas_senate_race.html","url_meta":{"origin":8299,"position":4},"title":"Alaska’s Senate race","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Nov-08 9:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"Electoral-vote.com gives the latest on Alaska's Senatorial election. First off, looks like Alaska and the Republicans won't be embarrassed by a convicted felon being returned to office. With all but...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27300,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/02\/not-that-i-had-much-trust-in-vitter-anyway.html","url_meta":{"origin":8299,"position":5},"title":"Not that I had much trust in Vitter anyway","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 2-Apr-12 5:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... but these kind of shenanigans aren't the way to good government.\"Sen. David Vitter undermined public trust when he blocked a raise for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar unless he issued more deep-water exploratory drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill, the Senate ethics committee said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}