QUORUM CALL….Over at The Corner, David Freddoso of the Evans-Novak Inside Political Report says that Harry Reid’s plan to keep the Senate in session Tuesday night isn’t going to work:
Right now, there are only 50 working Democratic Senators (Tim Johnson D, S.D. hasn’t cast a vote yet this year), and there are only 49 if you don’t include Joe Lieberman.
….You need 51 senators for a quorum, in the event that someone makes a quorum call — which any senator can make at any time. So all it takes is one Republican to stay in the chamber, object to anything the Democrats try to do, and then note the absence of a quorum. When the quorum is called, and only 50 senators are present, the Senate adjourns (or at least it can’t come out of the quorum call without unanimous consent), and the whole stupid stunt is over before Senator Byrd can even begin his outraged four-hour speech.
Hmmm. Obviously I don’t have the parliamentary chops to know if this is true, but it sounds disturbingly plausible. Just thought I’d toss it out for the hive mind to chew over.
UPDATE: In comments, larrybob points out that this all depends on Republicans unanimously boycotting Reid’s all-nighter in the first place (except for one senator to call for a quorum). True enough. But as Freddoso points out, even Republican senators who oppose the war don’t have much incentive to help Reid out by showing up for this. It might not be hard to derail it.
