Reid preps war against Republicans

With little actual legislating to do, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is resorting to a messaging war against Republicans in the final week before the chamber adjourns for elections, forcing all senators to be present in the chamber Monday night to duke it out over jobs initiatives.

Reid announced Friday he will hold a rare live quorum call Monday at 7 p.m. — meaning that all members will need to come to the floor for a mandatory head count — followed by procedural vote Tuesday morning on an anti-outsourcing jobs bill, which does not have the votes to clear a GOP filibuster but gives Democrats a chance to talk about overseas jobs and tax loopholes and slam the Republican economic agenda.


The move to hold the live quorum on a night when most are just getting back into town is telling for Reid. Not only is it a nuisance to the minority, but with only a few days left before Democrats head for the exits and run for re-election, Reid can make for good television by forcing senators to debate each other rather than speak to an empty room.

"As big as the CSPAN-2 audience may be, cheap beltway stunts aren’t gonna convince anyone looking for a job that Democrats can help them find one," a GOP aide said of the planned 7 p.m. live quorum. "There are three words that define Democrats’ track record on jobs: stimulus, failure and unemployment."

Earlier in the day, Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a preview of what Monday's discourse between the parties could look like, with the Republican leader charging that Democrats have "wasted months in the chamber" harming the private sector while his Democratic counterpart shot back that the GOP has wasted time with filibusters.

“For my friend to stand on the floor and say the continual exporting of our jobs is good for our country is beyond the pale," Reid said to McConnell. "Not only does the fact that these jobs being taken off of our soil and transferred to another country create tremendous job losses here, but we give these people tax benefits for doing it.”

Meanwhile, Democrats held a press call to tout the bill and faced questions as to why they are trying to push forward with legislation which does not have the votes to break a GOP filibuster.

Democrats are already taking heat from all sides for not holding a critical tax cut vote before the election, and were divided internally as a caucus even as news broke Thursday that lawmakers would leave for home without having taken a tax package to the floor.

"I can tell you that Harry Reid made it clear that we face a deadline by the end of the year on the tax cuts," said Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), adding that the Bush tax breaks "has this expiration date, not one of our choosing." But the Senate's No. 2 Democrat emphasized that while Congress will get the tax package done before the cuts expire Jan. 1, the move to vote on the outsourcing jobs bill is a way for his party to "try to make a clear, strong positive statement about keeping jobs in the United States."

"There is no issue more important to the American people than the outsourcing of jobs," added Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Durbin said the Congressional Budget Office has scored the bill as costing $720 million per year.

The Senate also will attempt next week to take up the continuing resolution, which funds government operations in the absence of the passage of a formal budget appropriations bill.

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