[MsTinkerbelly]

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” cloture vote and the story on amendments
By Adam Bink

The most common question asked lately about the impending Senate vote this weekend is “will there be amendments/poison pills that could screw the whole thing up”?

The short answer is no. Sen. Reid, using his prerogative as Majority Leader, has filled the “amendment tree“, which precludes other Senators from offering amendments. Filling the tree generally means blocking anyone from offering anything. The Majority Leader uses his preferential recognition to file friendly or even pro-forma amendments solely for the purpose of blocking anyone else from offering friendly or hostile amendments. A brief explanation from CRS (via, oh noes, Wikileaks!):

”Amendment trees” are charts that illustrate certain principles of precedence which guide the Senate amendment process. When all of the amendments permitted simultaneously by these principles have been offered and are pending, an amendment tree is said to be ”filled,” and no additional amendments may be offered until one or more of those pending is disposed of or laid aside. Given that the presiding officer traditionally affords the Senate majority leader or his designee priority over all others in being recognized, a majority leader can repeatedly secure recognition and ”fill the amendment tree” himself by sequentially offering all of the amendments permitted under applicable circumstances. By doing so, a leader can ”freeze” the amendment process in place, blocking additional floor amendments, at least temporarily. A majority leader might ”fill the tree” in this way to prevent the offering of or voting on of non-germane amendments, to try speed consideration of a measure, or to control the subject or sequence of amendments that may be offered.

[...]

A Senator, particularly the majority leader, might pursue a strategy of “filling the amendment tree” for several reasons, including preventing non-germane (and perhaps politically controversial) amendments to a measure from being offered or voted upon;

attempting to expedite overall Senate consideration of legislation by limiting the overall number of amendments offered;

[...]

After filling an amendment tree, the majority leader may file a cloture petition, either on a pending amendment or on the underlying measure. If cloture is invoked on the measure, not only does it establish a 30-hour limit for further consideration of the bill, it limits amendments that may be offered to those that are germane and any pending nongermane amendments fall. By keeping a tree full until cloture is invoked, a majority leader may be able to prevent action on a pending non-germane amendment, prevent all non-germane amendments from being offered, or limit the consideration of additional amendments altogether.

According to the Senate calendar, Sen. Reid filled the amendment tree last night, which means no room for McCain to offer “poison pill” amendments that could sink the whole bill. You can always try to offer a motion to suspend Rule XXII, which governs cloture, and allow late amendments, etc., but such a motion would need 2/3rds (67 Senators) and is unlikely to happen.

Of course, Sen. Scott Brown’s spokesperson said “if and when a clean repeal bill comes up for a vote, he will support it”, so if the Majority Leader has any substantive amendments that are added that could complicate matters, but if they are merely pro-forma amendments for the purpose of blocking hostile amendments and we get a clean, straight up-or-down vote, then the chance increases that cloture would be invoked on the bill. But the bottom line is that, as David Waldman over at DKos notes, there will be a “straight shot” at the issue as hostile amendments are blocked.