As do the overwhelming majority of their members.
Even had the Cochran Amendment passed, I can see no circumstances in which the Senate conferees, representing the majority view in the Dem Senate party, would have opposed a timetable provision being reinserted in the conference report text.
(They might well argue over the nature of the timetable. No doubt, they still will, when we get round to the conference. But they would be right behind the principle of there being a timetable in the bill.)
I'll grant you that the conference bill would likely have had a timetable. Nonetheless this is a huge victory for two reasons.
1. There is now no possible argument or reason why the conference bill should not have a timetable. If the bill had failed the Senate, Republican conferees would have argued that since such a timetable had not passed the Senate, the conference bill should not have a timetable. That argument is eviscerated by this result. Who can say for sure if the Democratic Senators would not have caved? They did so on the minimum wage bill.
2. If the timetable had been stripped from this Senate bill, what are the chances that the one that the conference agreed to would have passed. Once again, it may have passed anyway, but this result makes it virtually certain.
One your first reason, what the GOP Senate conferees say will not affect the outcome: the conferees from each house vote on each matter separately, so the Dems are assured of a majority. (I doubt whether any Dem senators who are not sure votes for the leadership position will find themselves as conferees!)
(The minimum wage bill was quite different; there the vote on the text without sweeteners was taken to show that the bill wouldn't pass without sweeteners.
In the conference on HR 1591, the Dems will have no problem passing their preferred text (so long as both leaderships agree on it).
On the conference report, the GOP have the choice of filibustering or leaving the bill to Bush to deal with. That was pretty much always going to be their choice. Apparently, they're going with the second option.
But the result either way would not be affected by whether the timetable was struck out and reinserted in conference, or never struck out at all.
I don't see how the fact that the conferees from each house voting separately makes it more likely that the Dems would prevail. In my view it would make it less likely (though not by much) because the vote would not be influenced by House Democrats who did pass the timetable.
I also don't see how the minimum wage bill was all that different. If the timetable had been removed that would be the Senate saying, de facto, that the Bill will not be passed without a timetable. It is comparable to an amendment adding the tax cut package to the minimum wage bill. The Republicans filibustered the clean minimum wage bill and you can bet they would have filibustered this one too if the Dems tried to deny them a vote on the Cochran amendment.
Once again, I'm not arguing that a timetable would definitely not have been included even given the passage of the cochran amendment. I'm saying now that a conference bill containing a timetable is now a 99.9%+ probability, and that it was significantly less before.
Whats more, a conference bill that overruled a passed Cochran amendment would give cover to cowardly Republicans to vote against the bill because..."the conference overruled the will of the majority of the Senate."
This was a victory for us, try to enjoy it a little more. ;)
Sorry - the voting separately thing is really irrelevant. Shouldn't have mentioned it. Forget I ever did.
The point is that the Dem leaderships and (the vast majority of) the memberships of both houses are on the same page when it comes to the principle of a timetable for withdrawal.
We are guaranteed that some form of timetable will emerge in the conference text.
Gotta book right now - explaining the minimum wage thing needs a bit of time to think about, so I'll return to it tomorrow.
The question before the court was: assuming that the Cochran Amendment had passed, would the situation in the conference be analogous to that in which cloture on the minimum wage bill (sans sweeteners) was tried and failed?
I say no: because Cochran passing would not have been
the Senate saying, de facto, that the Bill will not be passed without a timetable.
Look at the position of the Dem leadership in each case: the cloture vote on the minimum wage bill showed it would not have passed the Senate without sweeteners.
Had they not then put in the sweeteners, the bill would have failed of passage in the Senate, and there would have been no conference on it in which the text could have been adjusted by the Dem conferees.
If Cochran had passed, the Iraq bill would certainly have passed the Senate - the GOP would not have filibustered a bill shorn of its (for want of a better word) teeth, and the Dems would have known that they could sort out the wording in conference.
It's true that
you can bet they would have filibustered this one too if the Dems tried to deny them a vote on the Cochran amendment.
But he was never going to do that - because it was much less trouble to allow the vote on Cochran. And because that's the way these things are done in the Senate, and Harry didn't want, on this occasion, to pick a fight with McConnell. (And vice versa.)
The tactics on both sides were dictated by the fact that everyone knew that the Dem leaderships could have any text they could agree on between themselves in the conference report.
And the GOP would have either to filibuster or to let it through.
The long-run direct marginal effect of the passage or non-passage of Cochran was therefore zero; pass or not, the final destination was the same: only the route would vary.
Short-term and indirect effects, there certainly are.
Harry kept his guys pretty much in line - and not for the first time on Iraq. So he and the party get a confidence boost and momentum. Not to be sniffed at.
Plus there are good talking points for the Dems to be spun out of the win - and good talking points denied to the GOP.
But the fundamentals in the game haven't changed.
And - I like a victory party like the next guy. But this is an occasion less for champagne than for root beer...
