Harry Reid Snags Victory On $15B Jobs Bill
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid squeezed out a victory on a $15 billion jobs bill after a whirlwind day of frantic negotiations with Republicans.
Reid closed the deal with help from the man who cost him his 60-vote Senate supermajority: Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown.
The 62-30 vote to break a GOP filibuster avoided an embarrassing loss for the embattled majority leader, who faces a tough reelection battle in a state crippled by high unemployment and foreclosure rates. Final passage of the bill could come by Wednesday.
Reid also showed critics who have slammed him as a highly partisan, ineffective leader that he can break the gridlock in the Senate.
The Monday vote allows debate to proceed on the package, which has a range of tax credits and highway funds aimed at creating jobs. Winning passage of even a scaled-back jobs bill is critical for Democrats, who want to show they’re tackling unemployment, which stands at 9.7 percent.
“I hope this is a beginning of a new day here in the Senate,” Reid said immediately after the vote.
The vote came after weeks of tough negotiations that enraged not only Republicans but also moderate members of Reid’s own caucus.
As late as Monday afternoon, leadership aides and key senators were uncertain whether Reid would get the two Republican votes necessary to help the legislation clear a key procedural hurdle. In fact, Democrats were already preparing a Plan B if this vote failed and planned to relentlessly blame Republicans for falling short.
But Reid carefully worked the vote, and Democrats eventually won over Sens.Brown, George Voinovich of Ohio, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Kit Bond of Missouri — enough votes to offset the loss of Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson.
The Republicans who voted yes were drawn by a range of tax credits, and Voinovich and Bond specifically mentioned the highway funding in the bill.
The vote was not a sure thing until the very end, as Democrats continued their hard sell right on the Senate floor. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) had an energetic conversation with Collins just minutes before she voted, which he then reported back to Reid. As soon as Kerry walked away, Collins was immediately visited by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
Reid made personal overtures to Brown, who based much of his campaign on being an independent voice in Washington.
“This Senate jobs bill is not perfect. I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I am voting for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work,” he said in a statement. “I hope my vote today is a strong step toward restoring bipartisanship in Washington.”
Brown refused to say whether he has solicited a specific commitment from Reid in exchange for his support but told reporters to “stay tuned” for a broad-based payroll tax deduction proposal.
Reid picked up Voinovich’s vote with a promise to take up the re-authorization of the transportation bill this year.
“I spoke to Majority Leader Reid prior to this vote, and he assured me that he understands the importance of a surface transportation reauthorization bill,” he said.
Collins called the process a “mistake” but said “the fact remains that the provisions of the bill were acceptable to me.” But she noted that she’d had no conversations with Reid about the bill.
And while this vote was a rare victory for Reid these days, there is still anger over how he handled the process.
Earlier this month, Reid killed a bipartisan jobs deal cut between Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), infuriating Republicans who spent weeks in negotiations. Even Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the author of a tax provision that became the heart of the Reid bill, voted against the smaller package.
“I don’t know why any senator would trust Harry Reid after he just killed a bipartisan compromise jobs bill,” said a Republican aide. “He basically dumped a must-pass measure with $45 billion in tax relief and said, ‘You know what, screw you guys.’”
Leadership aides say Reid dropped the Baucus-Grassley bill after intense lobbying from liberals in his caucus who doubted Republicans would actually vote for the measure when it came to the floor.
Democratic aides said Schumer called Reid during the blizzard two weeks ago and pushed him to drop the Baucus proposal in favor of the smaller bill. “I find Republicans a moving target here,” said Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. “I think the leader would have had problems on any bill.”
The Baucus-Grassley bill was favored by moderates like Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, who liked the inclusion of tax extenders for small business, doctors and other corporations and agriculture subsidies.
But those same provisions made liberals wary of the package, which they worried would be characterized as heavy on lobbyist-sought provisions after initial press reports characterized the jobs bill as low on job-creation initiatives.
Reid also killed the compromise measure because McConnell would not commit to supporting the package and insisted on including amendments to the package, Democratic aides said.
Reid then started building his own coalition, working the phones — reaching out a few times to Brown. His efforts were complicated by the announcement that Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) would miss the vote to receive treatment for stomach cancer.
Minutes before the vote, Reid sought to maximize pressure on wayward Republicans, including Bond, saying on the floor that he had received a letter from the Missouri Department of Transportation saying that federal funds to bidders for transportation projects would be postponed “until further notice.”
“Missouri is not alone,” Reid said. “With this bill, we’ll create the right conditions for the private sector to start hiring again, and we’re doing so in the right places.”
With that, he had won Bond’s support and a 2-vote margin of victory. Reid said he expects the jobs bill to pass within two days.
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Sources: Politico, Google Maps
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