Newsweek's Howard Fineman has an interesting news analysis headlined "How Frist fumbled on gay marriage amendment; Procedural mistake lets Democrats avoid voting on hot-button issue." Excerpt:
Rather than seek an up-or-down vote on a toughly worded version of the amendment, Frist and his allies (led by Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania) allowed discussion of a second, milder one. But since that one (which would leave latitude to the states) might actually pass, Democrats opted to mount a filibuster. As a result, the central (and only) vote turned out to be on a motion to shut off debate — a harder vote to use in an attack TV ad.
So apparently, Tom Daschle filibustered the FMA because alternative language to the amendment might actually have gotten 67 votes. On top of that, Daschle filibustered the FMA after promising not to.
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